


Taking Your Heaven By Force

by Varjo



Series: Timeline [5]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angel Wings, Avantasia - Freeform, Big Showdown, Blasphemy, Board Games, Bonding, Burn Wounds, Crowley is So Done (Good Omens), Dagon is a sea monster, Developing Friendships, Drama, Drunkenness, Emotional Whiplash all in all, Eurythmics - Freeform, Eventual Crack, F/F, F/M, Fashion & Couture, Fireworks, Forgiving of sins, Free Will, Gabriel and Beelzebub go rogue, Gabriel is a dick, Gabriel likes musicals, God left after Creation, Heaven and Hell are cancelled, Hospitalization, Hurts - Freeform, Hypnotism, I'll explain, Implied/Referenced Torture, Inspired by Music, M/M, Mentions of Imprisonment, Michael doesn't like them much, Mood Whiplash, New Year's Eve, Nick Cave - Freeform, Odd Friendships, Order vs. Chaos, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Politics, Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Riots, Shapeshifting, Siblings, Soldier Aziraphale (Good Omens), Some Fluff, Some Humor, Spells & Enchantments, The Doors - Freeform, Transphobia, Twins, Various point-of-view characters, World Travel, a lot of it actually, bodies are just meatsuits, creepy crawlies, disembodied dialogue, don't go unharmed, filing, forcing my taste in music on Crowley, i guess, isn't all that good for a human, it's no spoiler, it's the premise, long story, no I don't know how that fits, non-binary Beelzebub, occasionally, only in one chapter, technical progress, theological angels, though I don't know anything about that, tons of OC angels, various pronouns for Beelzebub, very long story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:40:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 40
Words: 83,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27136756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Varjo/pseuds/Varjo
Summary: Attend to your God-given dutyYou'll be taking your Heaven by forceHow can you choose?With your head in the noose?With no time to lose...Avantasia - Unchain the Light1Gabriel and Beelzebub have a conference after the Apocalypse went down the drain and they failed to punish the culprits. Venom is in the air; they need a new plan, new directions, a new...somethingto direct their, and their underlings' efforts toward. Also, both of them just very much would like this to be over, thank you very much.Then, how would it be if they just cut the middle man out?If Lady Almighty won't allow them to have their respite, their Elysium, among the shattered remains of a burned Earth, maybe it is upon them to turn Earth itself into their Elysium.Right?Humans should be much easier to sway and influence than their angelic and demonic brethren.Right?One of them will win, in the end, and be able to have their much-needed rest in a world built according to their ideals.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley & Lilith (Good Omens), Lilith/Satan | Lucifer (Good Omens), Michael/Uriel (Good Omens)
Series: Timeline [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1842865
Comments: 69
Kudos: 6





	1. I/1: The Descent

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Thank you for your interest in my story! :-)  
> As already detailed in the tags, this one is a very long beast of a story, and most of the other warnings I think should be put up are also there. Only thing I still want to explain a bit are Beelzebub's pronouns, because they vary with whose eyes we're seeing things through.  
> If it is zieself speaking, I use these pronouns: zie - zim - zir - zis - zieself. I dug them up somewhere in the internet, though please don't ask me where. The idea is, however, that zie didn't care enough to enforce this and/or tell anyone.  
> Gabriel is a special case; since he was close to zim and still feels somehow attuned, he feels that a simple 'she' as zie'd been called in Heaven would be wrong, but since he doesn't know any better, he chose the most neutral thing he could come up with and refers to zim as he-she. He couldn't possibly ask; that would imply he'd be interested in his opponent's _feelings_. Hmph.  
> All the other angels and demons remember zim being a female angel, therefore use she - her - hers - herself.
> 
> That would be all.  
> I hope you'll enjoy the story! Take care  
> V

Oh how he hated that visage. 

Any visage that crossed his line of sight on his rapid descent. 

He hated this swampy, stinking, damp, covered-in-refuse place; he hated the sounds his pristine shoes made on the moist floor and even the idea that something here could rub off onto his expensive suit, soil and deface it; he hated the irreverent and derisive looks that hit him out of every corner, every room, every nook and cranny; he hated the flying sparks and the flickering sickly lights from the antediluvian light sources along all corridors; he hated the posters that were sticking on each wall and that would probably amuse somebody who possessed roughly the maturity of a mayfly. A thoroughly wicked, tasteless and evil mayfly. All this was backed up by a hardly audible, bur nevertheless omnipresent humming or whirring, Heaven might know where that originated. 

Most of all, tough, he hated the sight of this place’s inhabitants. The very idea that they once had been his brethren made him quake from inside out; it was incomprehensible to him how anybody could let themselves go quite so much.

Perhaps, he thought sluggishly, trying to touch as little of the resident flora and fauna as possible, perhaps it would be worth considering having Michael and Uriel assemble their troops and set some things straight down here, military-style. If what he saw was representative of the level of technological advancement Hell as a whole was on conquering them would be child’s play, really. Whatever did they need Earth and the Riders and that thrice-damned Antichrist for if they could simply invade this backward place and raze it to the ground, now that the time obviously had come? Archangel Gabriel felt his thoughts and ideas divert from the Great Plan, but he hardly reacted with a twitch of his mouth. There was no time and no room for weakness and second thoughts while he was down here.

Michael, Archangel of Hell after all, had offered to be his bodyguard on this mission – Gabriel, though, had ordered her to fill in for him as long as he was gone. He fully expected himself to be able to deal with a swarm of mayflies; that quite apart from the fact that he suspected duplicitous motives behind her suggestion. 

He had to admit that he was worried about her and her conduct. Since the executions of the deserters had failed, Michael made such a pinched face most of the time – and, Gabriel might be daft or mistaken, but he thought she mostly contemplated him with it. He could almost watch the cogs turn behind her forehead, and that he couldn’t tell in which way and with how much strength they forced her on unsettled him considerably. As if the lamentable past events had made her question her loyalty… as if she now suddenly found it upon herself to question him and his authority.

Quite likely he would have to come up with something concerning her… but maybe he should start by putting pressure on Uriel. Uriel was exceptionally close to the Archangel of war, and if she was second-guessing Gabriel, Heaven, Michael or herself she hid it masterfully. Quite apart from that, Gabriel thought her to be weaker, easier to crack and influence than Michael onto whom, as he hoped, he could stretch his impact using her deputy.

But this was neither here nor there now; he would tackle his own employees and their disloyalties later, as soon as he had finished dealing with the egomaniacs down here. 

Beelzebub, he thought grudgingly as he approached the meeting room he-she had reserved for them. Beelzebub, you… he couldn’t even think of the right attributes to grace him-her with, nothing that would properly express his aversion, his abhorrence of him-her. For the first, he-she couldn’t even decide for one unambiguous appearance – if one had to wear a meatsuit, what was the problem with marking it as unified, as one clear thing in and of itself? What about order, destiny, rules? And then those vermin that kept swarming him-her – that couldn’t be hygienic. This face, endlessly distorted with wrath and distaste, the ratty hair, this… object on his-her head of which Gabriel never quite could tell whether it was alive; then there was the smell and the general fashion sense. But in this he-she wasn’t alone, he had to concede; nobody in Hell seemed to know the address or number of a decent tailor.

Beelzebub was expecting the Archangel already, sitting at the far end of a beaten conference table in a room that was overflowing with files in deplorable states and other things Gabriel didn’t even want to take a closer look at, wearing the usual uniform and glaring daggers at the entering angel. His-her arms and legs were equally spread in his-her current posture; a more sensitive angel than Gabriel would have found it scandalous. On the table in front of him-her sat a bottle containing a nondescript, dark reddish-black fluid; Gabriel couldn’t discern the stuff’s smell over the distance, but he already wrote a note to self that he wouldn’t be forced to touch a drop of it.

“Leave us,” he-she grunted, without ever lifting a glance off Gabriel’s eyes, addressing the lower-ranking demons going about their despicable businesses.

“Close the door behind you, you cretins,” Gabriel added and was promptly ignored. The Archangel couldn’t help but think these nimrods undercut his authority on purpose… he could see Beelzebub smirk benignly as he turned, rolling his eyes, to close the door himself.

How Lord-damned much he hated that visage.

“Now,” he began the conversation, sparsely and professionally, sitting down opposite Beelzebub and slapping his briefcase on the table, “I think we ought to discuss the one or the other thing.”

“For example the fact that you seem unable to control your field staff,” Beelzebub croaked.

Gabriel gave a derisive snort. “Something I might very well say about you. After all, it was your field worker who misplaced the child. Our agent had nothing to do with it.”

Beelzebub screwed up his-her face – half amusement, half murderous rage. “Think about that again, poultry.”

After all, was what he-she most probably thought but didn’t say, you know just as well as I that where the one is, the other won’t fail to turn up shortly after… they follow one another like stink follows the maddened skunk. They are symbiotic, like the crocodile and the Egyptian plover, like moss on a stone, like mushrooms or moss on soggy, decaying bark. It would be astounding indeed if one could come to a binding decision without first having consulted the other…

“Just saying.” Gabriel spread his hands, mock-apologetically. “If red riding hood, what was his name again, had taken that child to the right place, it would have been spoiled and everything would have gone according to plan. We would have fought our War, this place here would have been reduced to rubbish, ash and soot, and we wouldn’t have any problem with each other. _Nobody_ would have _any_ problems. Everything could have been said and done, and everything could be calm and quiet. But since you entrust your most incompetent employees with…”

The angel interrupted himself as if to reconsider.

“Forget what I said, _Lord_ Beelzebub. It is not as if you had the best agents at your disposal.”

A contemptuous smirk burrowed into Beelzebub’s features. “And you do have them? Then I would be thrilled to hear why you sent Goldilocks of all angels to Earth. If you don’t even manage to burn him to a cinder…”

“So?” Gabriel’s voice was sharp as a predator’s tooth. “May I remind you, _Lord_ Beelzebub, that you didn’t manage to dissolve sunglasses-in-the-dark in Holy Water? It was in Michael’s report. I would have made him drink it, every last drop… we could have seen whether he had ascended far enough to stomach _that_.”

Silence set in – an aggressive silence in which both participants were very well aware of the other one scheming in the back of their heads, devising a tactic for most efficiently going at the other’s throat. Though this was not all that was to it, at least for Gabriel, it was not – the silvery one was endlessly irked by the very idea that a subject like what had once been the simple and very unremarkable builder Rahtiel, answering to Kokabiel, himself, and finally Metatron, who had earnestly deserved his Fall had the honest-to-the-Lord possibility to one day ascend to Heaven again. Was someone like him even deserving of celestial fairness, and lenience? Michael and Uriel, as well as all the angels in their troops, hadn’t worked this hard to cleanse Heaven of traitors and renegades to have them flow back at first opportunity.

“So,” Beelzebub finally broke the silence, contemplating his-her opponent with fire in his-her eyes and a grave voice, “what to do now?”

What to do now? The question of questions. It didn’t merely apply to this conference, but to Beelzebub’s and Gabriel’s, if not Heaven’s and Hell’s whole existence. What indeed would they want to do now that the Great Plan had been foiled? There were no orders, no guidelines for a situation like this. It just had not been… written. Nobody, especially nobody in Heaven, could now hope to find their magnetic north in the consoling but rigid word of the Almighty, and this was very disconcerting, to say the least.

Hell surely adjusted more easily to this…

“I don’t know about you,” Gabriel muttered, leaning back with arms crossed in front of his chest, “but I, for my part, would disturbingly much feel like retrieving Aziraphale and plucking each feather individually from his wings.” That was petty and spiteful and unnecessarily cruel, the Archangel was well aware, but probably the most truthful and brazen thing to have come over Archangel Gabriel’s lips these past centuries.

“You seem to think little of your own time,” Beelzebub commented leisurely.

Gabriel remained silent, resting his chin on his thumbs and his nose on the index fingers.

“I can sympathize with the idea, though – apart from the fact that it is not severe enough by far,” he-she added broodingly.

“What would be severe enough?” Gabriel posed the – second question of questions.

“Well, since he shows such a desire to be a demon, one could split his tongue down to the root,” Beelzebub began, sounding almost bored, lifting a hand to watch a mutant-big, blue-green-black shimmering beetle tumble over it, “one could dip his wings in tar or blacken them with fire… one could blind him. His eyeballs would certainly be an apt addition to Hell’s collection of trophies. One could flay his skin and turn it to one of these coats or shirts he likes so much. One could open wounds in delicate places and fill them with liquid metal, little stones or nails. My pets and allies would certainly gladly burrow into his body at eyes, ears, mouth and nose and eat him up from within… the last thing he’d hear would be this.” As if commanded to do so, the beetle lifted its chitin shield and hummed intensely. 

Gabriel shivered. 

Beelzebub smirked. 

“It would be in his head, so he could never escape. Possible that this sort of treatment would leave scars on his astral soul so he would end up… irreversibly insane. But maybe it would suffice to spray him with Holy Water, since he’s descended enough so Hellfire won’t harm him anymore.”

Gabriel kept his silence a bit longer, visibly green-faced and trying to hide how sickened he was. “Do you know no shame,” he muttered, rubbing over nose and lips.

Beelzebub didn’t respond – but his-her pride was evident.

So this was what had become of…

Gabriel pulled himself together before he would finish this despicable thought. He felt utterly, almost desperately, like packing up, disrupting the conference and returning to the cleanliness and relative calm of Heaven – Michael and Uriel would gladly arm themselves…

“But now that I have told you what punishment we would make your traitor suffer,” Beelzebub took up the thread again and the Archangel jumped, knitting his brows half thoughtfully and half in irritation, “tell me, poultry, what torture you would have for ours.” I would be willing to extradite him, said his-her testy mien – if you make it worth my while.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------

1: Avantasia: Unchain the Light. In: same: Ghostlights. Donzdorf, Germany: Nuclear Blast, 2016


	2. I/2: The Lamentable Effects of Hell's Booze

Gabriel measured Beelzebub grandiosely, from the head adorned with the usual fly-shaped monstrosity, over the face disfigured by boils and rashes, the narrow chest to the legs, shamefully far apart. “I am shocked,” he said coolly, “that you assume that we in pristine, temperate, ordered Heaven would stoop to the same lows of cruelty as you.”

The beetle on Beelzebub’s hand gave a loud crackling; a mean spark started glowing in his-her usually so dispassionate eyes. Gabriel didn’t like what he-she did with his-her tongue between his-her opened lips. “I will welcome and accept any form of cruelty, _Archangel_ Gabriel,” he-she replied, “and even you must have ways to punish deviants. _Especially_ you.”

For one moment, Gabriel contemplated losing countenance – but finally decided to combat it. He wouldn’t give Beelzebub this sort of gratification. This riffraff here doesn’t deserve any more than the lordly CEO of Heaven – they didn’t even deserve that role, he pondered. “We will not have a conversation on this level,” he drew a line, making as if to gather his belongings and leave.

Beelzebub’s dark chuckle, however, stopped him. “Good that I have a way of dealing with such obstacles,” he-she whispered and heaved him-herself out of the chair – Gabriel could not prevent himself from staring at him-her, approaching in long, confident, swaying strides. In those moments one could almost forget his-her downright ridiculously small height – because in his-her power and its wielding, he-she was perhaps not that different, not less accomplished and awe-inspiring…

Upon reaching the Archangel, Beelzebub slammed the bottle on the ailing conference table, next to a stained and scratched old tumbler which he-she must have miracled up on the way. Up close, the liquid that sloshed and bubbled in its milky, scratched, glassy container didn’t look any more inviting or harmless. It started with the fact that whatever it was apparently had no scent at all… or it had one, and that was simply covered by the stinking vapours that lay thick in the hellish air.

“Drink,” he-she commanded coolly, one thumb hooked into the sash that ran diagonally across his-her body, the other hand flat on the table, and piercing the Archangel with a sharp look from his-her stone-grey, steel-grey eyes. “After a sip or two you won’t even remember how ‘level’ is spelled.”

Gabriel was outraged. Completely stunned with anger at this disrespect! Hadn’t they made it clear millennia ago that they, the angels, the sublime, the pure, were the winners, they who led the way, gave the orders and commanded respect? Why exactly did he have to put up with this treatment now?

“I’m an angel,” he hissed, “I do not pollute the temple of my heavenly body with…”

Beelzebub rolled his-her head around once in a frighteningly unnatural angle. “Talk lezzzz,” he-she snarled – the buzz around him-her and in his-her voice became more noticeable and contentious the more he-she got into his-her aggression, “drink more.”

“Is that supposed to impress me?” Gabriel felt his innermost grow cold; taking a mental step back and assuming the persona of the unreachable and officious head Archangel, he placed his interlaced hands on his thigh and glared up at Beelzebub. “Do not get out of line, Beelzebub – my professional esteem for you nears its end. I – we have already shown you once who is holding the reins here. It would be easy for me to repeat that, just so you know it.”

“Besides, this is not earthly matter. This is a pure product of Hell.” Beelzebub was adamant.

“That of course makes everything so much better!” Gabriel pulled a derisive frown.

“Am I to assume you are afraid that our booze would burn you from the inside?” Lord Beelzebub teased. The slightest hint of a smile twitched around the corners of his-her mouth, but they were heavy enough that the smile remained faint and half-formed at best. “Then imagine what it could do to your shoes… or this fine suit.”

Would that be so unlikely, Gabriel wanted to snap back – but before he could, he realized what he would admit thereby. He would admit he were afraid of something that came from Hell. That he, without knowing exactly, assumed that this… stuff… could harm him.

That he was not unwoundable…

Do you intend to threaten me, it grumbled in his innermost – because you succeed superbly.

He measured first the dark red liquid, then _Lord_ Beelzebub’s grim face with gentlemanly restraint, not letting his racing thoughts shimmer through.

 _Lord_ Beelzebub, this half child in a military uniform and the splendour of power and authority, grabbed the bottle neck and poured the fluid into the tumbler. He didn’t want to look up at him-her like that, and accordingly tried to show neither respect nor indecision. He-she would have liked that, Gabriel was sure. Much too much.

“Cheers,” he-she muttered, holding out the glass to his-her unwilling guest – who indeed, apparently faster with his hand and actions than with his head and mind, in the firm knowledge that he couldn’t allow himself to be treated this impertinently, snatched the bottle from his host’s hand and took a monstrous gulp.

That was a mistake.

The bottle dropped to the ground, miraculously remaining whole; Gabriel needed both hands to hold one in front of his mouth and cramp the other around his throat.

The stuff burned from Gabriel’s mouth cavity down to his stomach – the coughing spasm which instantly seized him did nothing to ease that pain. It even stung in the eyes! The taste was sharp, but also minty and sour, the consistency bright and clear like liquefied crystal. Not bad, all in all, if it weren’t for that damn stinging and burning…

“It’s always like this at first try,” _Lord_ Beelzebub informed him completely unmoved, him-herself sipping from the tumbler, “just wait until the burning has subsided. Then it gets really intense.”

Fantastic.

He-she had now settled on the edge of the table, his-her fists clasped on one knee and over the glass, and looked down at his-her guest inquiringly. Gabriel gave a belch as he looked up at Beelzebub and put the bottle he had bent to pick up, in a quest for something to do, back on the table. There was only a sad, dirty little remnant of fluid still in there.

“Disgusting,” he coughed, annoyed at how thin his voice sounded. "Foul. No wonder you are..."

“Your opinion, peacock,” interrupted _Lord_ Beelzebub, uncharacteristically tolerant, “but it helps loosening up – even an uptight bore like you. How is it now? Any ideas for the traitor Crowley?”

Gabriel might be damned – but – yes. Yes, absolutely. He didn’t know if it was due to the booze, but his imagination was slowly starting to act up, and to come up with ways to break an unruly demon. Even more, the longer the brew sloshed in his angelic physique, the more his desire to have a go at most of it grew. “This stuff,” he muttered, pointing to the horrifying liquid. “Forever. An endless supply of this and nothing else, and he can only go once he has used it up. Or if he… if he drinks down an entire bottle without having to vomit.”

It was meant as a joke, halfway at least, but Beelzebub nodded in acceptance. “Could get better, but it’s a start,” he-she commented, noticeable disappointment on his-her face.

For some reason, Archangel Gabriel was provoked – what, Beelzebub was of the opinion he was unable to discipline a traitor? Well, he would show him-her. “Heaven,” he began, swallowing hard and raising a hand as if to fan himself with the stale Hell air, “has some… very pleasant… isolation cells.”

“Now we’re talking.” A smirk spread across Beelzebub’s face – it looked peculiar combined with his-her heavy mouth corners and cold, unmoving eyes.

“What… what do you think about two to three hundred years in solitary confinement?”

“Not even nearly enough, peacock.”

“Right!” Gabriel heard his voice get higher and thinner; he couldn’t do anything about it. “A… a few million years, probably more. An’ you could change the weather in there so he’ll be… he’ll be freezing in its snake skin, yes.”

There was a pause. Gabriel felt himself swallow hard, felt the warmth of the drink spread in the depths of his celestial body and gradually drive the thoughts out of his consciousness. There was only feeling: the tickling under his midriff, the itching and scratching in the throat, the burning in the abdominal cavity, the bilious, almost furry lightness in the head that made it so damn difficult to have one straight idea. The whole room seemed to be moving, alternately blurring and clearing up, the air was not gaseous but liquid, always twirling in front of his eyes; things that were as tight as the knot of his tie under his collar, were firmly under his control at one moment were soft, fleeting and fluid the next moment, if not intangible.

And what about his face? He hardly felt his face anymore. Was it possible that he pulled an unsightly grimace at these moments?

“Everythin’ tha’s beautiful,” he continued – and stopped immediately since the more he spoke, the more he felt how his tongue devolved into an element that was loosely connected to him and vaguely under his command much rather than a part of his body. Manipulating it was hard work. He flapped his hand about – strangely, this was much easier. “Everythin’ that’s beautiful mus’ give you… give you real pain, no? You from… from Hell, is wha’I mean.” He swallowed again. That thrice-damned scorching in his throat! “Music. Celestial… harmonies. ‘n eternity in the or… or… orchestra pit of Heaven. Bound ‘n gagged. Tha’ will showim who’s boss!”

Gabriel chuckled, wanted to be ashamed of having let the sound escape, but wasn’t able to; the chuckle turned to helpless coughing.

“Damnit, that burn…” he muttered, pressing a fist to his chest, and Beelzebub reacted by shoving his-her drink toward him. That heat down his throat, the emptiness in his ribcage…

“Another sip,” he-she commanded drily, “Doesn’t make it better, but overpowers it. For a time.”

Gabriel didn’t ponder it for long. He just acted. The liquid was like solidified fire in his body, but Beelzebub was right: it at least partially covered the scratchy throat and emptiness in the stomach to replace it with a veritable forest fire. The Archangel thought he might be able to work with that. This time he did not put the bottle away but rested it on the arm of his chair, holding the bottle neck tightly; who would know what use that devil’s stuff would still serve.

“You could let him exer… exer… exer-cise with Michael,” he continued, “Michael an’, an’ her troops. Yes. Shave his skull and stick ‘im in a uniform, then tha’s it with me, me, me, always jus’ me. Michael, she will bring’im… she will drive’im unner control, yes. She’s… she’s a probber arddist when ‘d comes to gedd those who, who… who’re out of line… getting back on line… in line?”

Beelzebub had raised the tumbler to his-her lips, taking delicate little sips every other time, and was silent. His-her eyes were inquiring and demanding, but he-she seemed to have all the time and patience in the world. How extremely irritating.

Gabriel heaved himself out of the chair; he couldn’t bear being stared at from above by the Lord of Hell any longer. He also had to move; everything tingled and crabbed under his skin. Waving the bottle without spilling anything and pacing up and down, he continued, stammering now and then, “We could… we could lock‘im up in… inside a church or a mosque, or a syn… syna… gogue. Gogue!” This time he emitted belting laughter and felt furious pride upon seeing that Beelzebub raised at least one corner of his-her mouth. “Naked, with’is face onne floor, yes, ‘n angel stanning on’is back, yes, so tha’ he can never… never geddup!”

Gabriel’s laughter was throaty, hoarse, and yet infinitely liberating. He had never imagined that mere planning a punishment for deviant, and if he was twenty times as annoying as that presumptuous, self-centred, foolish, brainless, strutting, sunglasses-wearing cretin, could possibly be this comforting and uplifting. Merely picturing the burns on his face, chest and stomach – his wailing and whining under torture – his unsuccessful attempts to grab something, to wriggle under the weight on his back or to scream for help…

“See – that’s not half bad, now,” whispered Beelzebub.


	3. I/3: Drunken Ramblings

Gabriel whirled around and gave him-her a scathing look, raising his hand to point at him-her in an impaling gesture. “I don… I don’ need your abbroval,” he mumbled, which Beelzebub acknowledged with laughter, “I don’ need anythin’ from you. You cons… consider you'self lucky tha’ I sink so low as to even talk to you, you should.”

Lord Beelzebub was utterly unimpressed. “Can it and fill up, _Archangel_ Gabriel,” he-she required, shoving the empty tumbler towards his-her guest.

As the Archangel finally comprehended his own actions, he was already standing next to his snobbish host – his disdainful hostess, whatever – and the nauseating liquid splashed into his-her glass. What was he now, his-her butler? Strangely enough, this was a thought that was present in Gabriel’s brain, but did not make him take any action. He just stood there, filled Beelzebub’s glass and looked at his-her face. Repulsive, absolutely and undoubtedly yes; overgrown with imperfections, smelly and distorted, teeth blunt, hair dishevelled. But it also was the face of a former angel…

Damn it, what was he thinking? He-she had chosen his-her fate, and his calling and rank left him nothing but contempt for those who had embarked on this path.

Gabriel’s face twisted; he raised the bottle to his mouth to swish away all these abhorrent thoughts. If only there was still something to serve that purpose. Nothing but hot, stale, polluted hellish air reached his lips.

Beelzebub’s gaze remained inquiring and penetrating as he-she lifted the glass to his-her lips and watched the Archangel carelessly hurl the bottle into a corner where it shattered. Something about this situation felt strange. Not like ever before. More intense, more urgent, even if he could not discern this urge’s goal.

“Are we done here, then?” Beelzebub asked, showing teeth with a challenging grin.

“You tell me,” Gabriel mumbled, whereupon the Lord of Hell went to the door, leaned out and roared a request for more booze into the corridor.

It took a while, but finally, Gabriel and his body found a way of dealing with the alcohol. His voice grew stronger, his speech more controlled – the plosives regained their hardness, he could articulate words to the end and had to scour his angelic brain less before they turned up – and his gestures also began to take on somewhat understandable features. The environment, however, did not cease to oscillate, objects seemed to be strangely veering between concrete and intangible, and while Beelzebub’s malice was definitely real and deeply rooted, the booze washed away some of its grim humourlessness. Gabriel couldn’t tell whether he should appreciate it.

The lower servant demons that Beelzebub crowed for when the contents of a bottle came to an end saw increasingly bizarre scenes upon opening the door, delivering their goods and immediately getting thrown out again: 

The Archangel and their Lord, throwing cuss words and threats as well as objects at each other across the room, taunting and ridiculing each other when they missed. Once Gabriel must have tried to illuminate the room with heavenly light because it smelled of an electrical fire for a few hours – burned wood, charred hair, blackened paper, scorched wires, singed textile, chitin deforming in the heat.

The Archangel, slouching in one of the chairs and with both legs on the table, resting his temples in his shovel-like hands, while their Lord was sitting on the table with legs crossed and back bent, glowering at him like a famished bird of prey.

The Lord, laboriously explaining every medal and the sash on his-her uniform.

The Archangel, showing his voluminous, white-silvery wings, all three pairs, and boastfully explaining how they could never, in no situation, have ever been a hindrance, and much better, too, more representative, more resilient than the translucent insect wings that Lord Beelzebub carried.

Upon this followed a zealous recapitulation of the fates of the Fallen as well as of the Loyal – neither of the two managers had ever had the interest, time or competence to match every faded angel name with a demon face and its activities or, conversely, to keep the remaining ones in the back of their minds with name, face or character.

Somehow Lord and Archangel got to recapitulating various biblical scenes and what of these, as well as which events in the human’s puny secular history, might have been whose work. With every moment that passed, the atmosphere grew thicker, the air more acidic from the gases of Hell and the alcohol, and the floor was littered with the shards of empty bottles.

And finally…

“I have to admit,” grumbled Beelzebub, now enthroned in a chair, while Gabriel was lying on his back on the still shaky, still crumbling conference table, his wings hanging lazily over the edge, “back at the… at the Ark thing, I thought that’d been it. Now you’d fully driven us out of business – not in the way I would have expected you to, but, well. Not even _we_ could've thought of that.”

The atmosphere was rather dry and sombre again. The great, rousing surge of energy from the intoxication had gone by, now the alcohol was bubbling leisurely in the supernaturals' bloodstreams, and while Beelzebub was full and tranquil and, in a way, gratified, Gabriel felt a little drained.

The Archangel chuckled, closing his aching eyes. “Thanks for the compliment,” he mumbled, “I think too that this was… that was one of my best works, it was.”

Beelzebub raised an eyebrow discreetly; he-she was not capable of a stronger or more eloquent reaction in this state. Astonishment and horror seemed to exist in the bud inside, but none of them reached the surface. “So… that wasn’t your God at all?” he-she asked sluggishly, “That was all… you?”

“Where’s the difference?” Gabriel struggled upward so he could lean on his elbows; that was a mistake, he found immediately, because the room started to blur and spin again, the stinging headache came back, and he thought it better to let himself sink back for the time being, hands clasped over his chest. Only then did he notice that his tie had disappeared. “I’ll tell you something, Beelzebub my princess. God…” he snorted, “… God turned away from us the very moment She created us, right? I don’t understand how it could possibly have escaped you all. There is no God. There is only me. At least up there.

For God we are – you, me, the people do…” he stopped himself in the last moment from saying ‘down there’, “… up there, we are no more than entertainment for Her. She doesn’t care what becomes of us, yes? Or what we do. As long as She finds it funny. She doesn’t intervene and do something against anyone She doesn’t like or anything, either. Does not happen. As soon as we were there, She sat down and leaned back and said, ‘now, people, angels, amuse me’. She just watches what we do – how we deal with Her rules, Her, Her, Her… Creation, that’s it, Her creation, and if She has any opinion at all, She doesn’t share. Not with me, at least. Sometimes I imagine that She makes pejorative comments and… and explanations on goings-on. As if someone was listening to Her out there.”

“And so…?” Beelzebub tried to goad the Archangel to go on, and he picked up the bait almost greedily.

Gabriel made an impatient, circular gesture. “And so I commanded the angels in the name of God to open the celestial watergates to cover the whole dry land with water,” he explained as if he were talking to a disobedient first grader, “back when people started to think that… that all of this wasn’t all that serious, you see, and that they could bend the rules a little bit now and then, just somewhen in between, yes. Of course they do it, if you can assure credibly enough that you have the orders from very, very, very, _very_ high above. The angels, I mean, not the people. Metatron? Metatron’s involved, up to both ears. Talk about the voice of God… he can reach God just as little as I or Michael, and certainly not someone like you.

The Ark? Noah and all the casualties and all that? It was a simple business decision, Beelzebub my princess, you as a fellow businessperson surely have to understand that. I think nowadays it’s called ‘public relations.’ Press work, if you like. We had a point to make. We need good souls, posi… positive energy for our final struggle. They don’t abide by our rules – rules that they all know, that are straightforward and really not inhumane now. I mean people now. They just… just stopped obeying and sticking to the rules at some point, and ifey, if they I mean, if they don’t want to believe, you have to make transparent for them what happens if they don’t believe. Yes. That means losses for us – and losses are not up for debate – so an example must be made and those who harm us must go. It is only right and fair.”

For a few moments it was quiet, except for the buzzing of Beelzebub’s multi-legged and multi-winged army. Beelzebub leaned back on his-her throne and let what he-she just heard sink in with something closely resembling glee. Wonderful story. But still not flowery enough… 

“Tell me, Archangel Gabriel, did you enjoy seeing all these creatures sink in the floods – and never appear again?”

Gabriel was silent for a moment; then he smacked his lips quietly. “It wasn’t so much the sight of death,” he grumbled to himself, “it was the silence and order that followed that was blissful. For a few maybe hundred years everything was _quiet_. The machinery ran. Everyone kept to the rules, everyone did what they were supposed to, everyone knew their place and stuck to it… you could almost get some work done. The other angels follow me blindly. They really believe I’m the only one to still get orders from God. Can you believe that?

It was all too perfect. Only in the last couple of years… and with Jesus and this ‘New Testament’ and everything that goes with it, with all the… compassion and forgiveness and forbearance… so that’s all off the table now. Yes. Sometimes I think Jesus came from God in fact, somehow, I don’t know how, and that She sent him alone to test my faith and annoy me and… how does one say? Throw stones and branches between my feet or something like that.” After all, you couldn’t expect the task you were given to not be a challenge.

Gabriel could hear Beelzebub chuckling, but he didn’t care. He-she should amuse him-herself as long as was possible, by his leave. He-she would see who would laugh best in the end.

“One might wonder how you haven’t fallen with this world view…” growled Beelzebub, and Gabriel laughed heartily, if still a little hoarsely.

“Oh, Beelzebub, princess, I am the one angel in existence who is safe from that. I don’t fall. No way. How should the one who sets the rules… ever be punished for breaking the rules?” The Archangel laughed throatily. “It’s brilliant. _I am_ brilliant.”

A scrape and squeak on the floor indicated that a chair was being moved, finally something rustled far too close to his ear, and something – Beelzebub, by all logic – pushed the manager's top and middle left wings apart. That tugged sharply in the joints, but Archangel Gabriel didn’t care. He made a slight face and rolled his head back and forth, grumbling, moved his back and wing joints to make himself marginally more comfortable, but that was all he did in response.

He only opened his eyes again as he felt a small but forceful hand backhand him violently across his face. The knuckles dug deep into his cheek. “What…” he shouted at the malefactor, imperiously.

Beelzebub sat between his wings, broadly and proudly and completely unmoved, and leant over him as if trying to fix him there. In fact, his-her delicate hand hovered just a few inches above his rumpled shirt… In his-her face anger raced, the eyes sparkling, the lipless mouth twisted – Gabriel was vastly unimpressed, merely raised an eyebrow and aggravatedly shifted his lips against each other. “What in Heaven are you playing at?” he asked angrily.

“You’re a coward,” he-she scolded, “All that power within your reach… and you don’t seize it?”

Gabriel started. What was that supposed to mean? He had seized it very well – had seized all of it.

“There you are, hiding behind a disembodied old hag who has taken Herself well out of the game and Her thrice-damned word. No, _Archangel_ Gabriel, it is time for change. Massive change.”


	4. I/4: You Have Been Absolved

It was silent still in the room – so silent you could hear a pin drop. For this very reason, those present tried to breathe as quietly and move as little and as softly as possible – any excessively perceptible sound would draw everyone’s attention to the causer, and no-one seemed keen on it. The light was blinding, the air unnatural in its purity, cleanliness and coolness, and the atmosphere was stuffy and tense.

The iridescent, hardly tangible conference table taking up most space in this room was only populated lightly. At its head sat Archangel Gabriel, his fingers intertwined in front of his chin, his head leaning onto them, und stared with glassy eyes flatly into nowhere over everyone’s heads. He didn’t budge; he didn’t speak. It would be all too easy to assume he had petrified or passed away in this position, would he not now and again show a miniscule breathing motion or the blink of an eye. Apart from that, every single creature seemed to sense that something was different about their manager – that didn’t even mean the darker suit he donned today. There was something distant, intangible like a faint twitch around the corner of his eye, an unknown shimmer, a firmness or relentlessness in his violet irises…

To his right, with some empty seats’ distance, Michael, Uriel and Sandalphon had settled down. The first two were occasionally exchanging more or less meaning-heavy glances while the latter mostly stared into the far-off with a distressed, almost desperate grin; a grin that betrayed his desperate grappling on his calm and composure. Michael’s hand was cramped around a pair of white gloves, but apart from that, she appeared rather untouched if a little irritated; Uriel’s hands lay on her knees, restlessly moving the fingers about. She was mostly focusing on them when she wasn’t casting looks at Michael over Sandalphon’s head.

To Gabriel's left, though on the far opposite end of the table, Aziraphale of the Principalities had taken a seat, agitated and anxious down to the bone. 

Upon entering he had made for the ranks of the normal angels who had gathered at the foot end of the table, appearing every bit as speechless and disorientated as their higher-ranking brethren. Gabriel, however, had interrupted him with no more than a gesture that had made the field agent look into his boss’s face fretfully – that one single glance could be so very disconcerting, yes, downright intimidating if the bookseller were to state his opinion – and had motioned for him to take a place at the conference table.

These hands – so big and yet so gracefully built.

Aziraphale had lifted his own hands in attempted defence and had made to continue on his way to the ranks of the regular angels – but as he had repeated the inviting gesture, Gabriel’s facial expression had taken on a downright threatening air, and the Principality had obeyed, pressing his lips onto each other. While he was rounding the table to get to his seat, being deadly ashamed of each of his loud and clear footfalls, his hand cramped around the message in his coat pocket; the message he had found a mere two days ago on his desk, between the usual and innocent, if also rather chaotic hodgepodge of invoices, scattered-around books, writing tools, scissors and the old telephone. 

He had only been out of doors for a short evening walk – upon his locking the shop’s door, everything had been in perfect order. Upon returning, however, he had found the message.

The message which, written in silvery ink and signed with Gabriel’s sigil, had said no more than, ‘ _You have been absolved. We are expecting you in two days’ time at four PM in Heaven, conference room 1._ ’ 

At first, he had thought it a joke – had _wanted_ to take it for a joke, more like. But who should be able to forge a heavenly letter this impeccably that simply touching it, picking it up and reading it made the reader experience an oppressive sensation of Heaven’s cold, superior authority?

Who apart from himself knew every line and dot in Gabriel’s sigil?

Where else should one find paper of such heavy, flawless quality…?

Was this here about him? Was it a tribunal to his dishonour, and had Crowley and he not signalled sufficiently that they considered themselves out of Heaven’s and Hell’s controlling grasp? Aziraphale had reflected frantically whether it would be smart to attend – but in the end, whom did he want to fool here, he had understood that he couldn’t bring himself to not attend. The words that had been addressed to him had disturbed and confused him so much that he could not simply leave them sitting there without knowing what was lurking behind them.

Something made Aziraphale assume that whatever Gabriel planned to say, he wasn’t overjoyed about. Might there be a new order from the Almighty? Had She in Her endless wisdom chosen to change things, or make Her word open to the angels to use at their hearts’ and minds’ content instead of having them obey letter by letter? That indeed must enrage Gabriel…

His reflections wanted to carry Aziraphale away. The angel breathed deep and straightened up, trying to concentrate on this very moment and the things he knew; wild, unchecked speculation would not garner any progress here.

Now he sat there, he who had been ‘absolved’, felt small and cold and uncertain and didn’t dare utter a word, and stared at his hands as he waited. As all of them waited without the ability to tell what for. His heartbeat echoed in the seemingly empty space between his ears and everything between his chest and there. Aziraphale was almost given to the claustrophobic belief that everyone could hear his heartbeat, could hear cogwheels ticking and turning behind his forehead, how he separated his dry lips and tried to moisten them with his tongue, how the sheet of paper in his coat pocket crackled and rustled with every little movement.

Time ticked by, as unhurried and lethargic as an elephant’s step. Nothing stirred. Nothing happened. Nothing even emitted a whisper. Aziraphale perceived that Sandalphon occasionally made as if to ask something, but Michael mostly made him stay silent in a rush, and the heavenly field agent couldn’t help but feel this was a good course of action.

Many an angel jumped or flew to attention as steps, closing in, became audible – not merely one, two or three pairs of feet, maybe those of half an army, but without the coordination and order of an army. Aziraphale felt how his heart beat faster and his breath got shorter – his more fine-tuned senses alerted him to some form of danger, that something oppressive, something quite opposed to him was nearing, and he wondered feverishly if the other angels might feel it as well. Indeed, some of the lower-ranking angels had screwed up their faces or taken more tense sitting positions, some ventured forward while others rather drew back; Aziraphale could sympathize. His very own instinct told him to go to the forefront, to block the way of whoever was nearing.

An exasperated tug moved Michael’s narrow mouth, and Uriel’s lips drifted apart slightly as she turned her gaze to the door behind Gabriel; the chief Archangel himself either noticed nothing or paid no further attention to his perceptions. He continued to sit akin to a marble statue, chin resting on his crossed fingers, staring into the distance, expressionless and oblivious.

Then the door opened – was knocked open so that the handle hit the wall, and the demons marched in, led by Lord Beelzebub who was looking grim and angry as usual. And wasn’t that behind her… wasn’t that Hastur? Dagon? 

The air grew bad, stuffy and polluted, permeated with dust, soot, ashes and pest-like stench, not to mention flies, mosquitoes, beetles and other vermin; several angels had to suppress a cough, quite a few wriggled under the new impression, clenched their fists, grimaced somewhere between disgust and hatred, or leaned towards one another whispering.

Aziraphale tore open his eyes and gasped, leaned back in his chair, clutching the edge of the table – what possibly could be the meaning of this? Gabriel would never allow more than the absolutely necessary amount of demons, which very rarely exceeded one, to be on celestial ground! What was this whole… this whole cluster doing up here?

“Lemme through, damn it! Lemme go! What are you all doing here?”

For some reason, the usual relief didn’t make itself known this time as Aziraphale heard Crowley’s gruff voice utter unabashed curses. This – nothing good could come of it. Things were going on here that were so big that the angelic agent didn’t fully comprehend them – Crowley shouldn’t be involved, and neither should the other demons. Wasn't this here… shouldn’t it be a matter of Heaven?

Aziraphale remembered that he had no idea what kind of “matter” was at the bottom of this, but this thought only served to heighten his confusion and dry up his mouth and tongue further.

He had already wondered how he would explain his call into Heaven, and more pressingly his following of that order, to Crowley. The demon bore a much deeper grudge against their former employers, not even making a distinction between above and below, than Aziraphale had ever done, and every mention of them made him sink into gravest, almost violent displeasure. Talking to him about this would have been a most aggravating task. But now – now that he was here, Aziraphale had to worry about one thing less. Now they could discuss what had transpired here immediately after the conclusion and with significantly less fuss and tantrums on his part.

Taken that they would survive.

Taken that he wouldn’t fly into a childish rage and refuse to talk to Aziraphale for a while…

Upon the demon entering Aziraphale’s field of view, the angel had not the least difficulty to tell that Crowley was upset – the sunglasses had a long time ago stopped fooling or slowing him down. Oh, upset – he was furious. He struggled through the crowd, his mouth twisted, snapping and scoffing and ruthlessly pushing demons out of the way with his elbows or unchecked kicks, rushed past Hastur, Dagon and Beelzebub without another word and puffed himself up next to Gabriel with his flat hand slapping down upon the table.

“What isssssss that sssssuppossssed to mean, turtleneck?” he snapped at the Archangel, falling back into his snake-like hissing habit, his face way too close to Gabriel’s, “How now, ‘I wasssssss abssssssolved’? Sssssssssay ssssssomething, turtleneck, if you have ssssssssssomething to sssssssay!”

Aziraphale felt shaken to the core. (So Crowley as well? Crowley had received the same... information? That didn't make the situation any less confusing…) He got up, fully determined to say something – determined to ask Crowley to come over, to appease Gabriel, to throw the demons back, to start a negotiation, anything. But his tongue was heavy and cold in his mouth – as much as he had read in his life, in as many different languages, at that moment he was hard-pressed to find a single word or its usage.

Gabriel had turned his head to the newcomer and was merely staring at him – no word came over his lips, and neither party in this staring duel seemed to want to move an inch. Aziraphale struggled to imagine the Archangel’s expression – might it be annoyed? Threatening? Stately? Mocking? Or was she still wearing the stony, uninvolved expressionlessness? What?

What was his and Crowley’s fate?

“Sit down, traitor.” Beelzebub’s commanding, insensitive voice tore this syrupy situation out of its lethargy and immobility – this voice was like a knife that cut open a wound to finally let blood flow. “You won’t demand anything, let alone answers… you will sit down and shut your trap and listen like everyone else.” Crowley raised his head to look at his Lord as she stood, flanked by the two highest-ranking remaining demons – and in those moments Beelzebub did something that took everyone's breath away.

Lord Beelzebub put a hand on Archangel Gabriel’s shoulder.


	5. I/5: Going Out of Business

Aziraphale could almost watch thoughts, questions, irreverent comments, maybe the one or the other joke crisscrossing through Crowley’s mind as he hesitantly straightened himself up – centuries of oppression and fear, badly hidden hatred and coerced submissiveness, centuries of servility and forced bows, the hope, no, the knowledge that he was free of his chains for this time and forever – and now this. Now his Lord turned up and had the nerve to just drily order him about again…

“Hastur, Dagon, you sit across from Michael, Uriel and Sandalphon,” Beelzebub ordered without looking up from Crowley’s sunglasses, “traitor… to your partner.” Her head, crowned by the gigantic felt fly, nodded backwards to Aziraphale.

He felt his windpipe getting obstructed as she spoke.

Hastur and Dagon obeyed, crossing legs and arms as they sat – Heaven’s atmosphere didn’t seem to bother them at all, neither the infernal hangers-on, by the way. They looked uninvolved, basking in their repulsiveness. But even though their bodies were so relaxed, their eyes were alert and watchful – Aziraphale knew Hastur and Dagon were ready to strike at any time.

“You’re not entitled to give me any ordersssssss,” hissed Crowley, building up to full height in front of Beelzebub, “didn’t the demonsssssstration in Hell ssssssay assssss much? I could ssssssertainly…”

“Oh, I don't need Holy Water to get you in line,” Beelzebub pointed out, her voice still cool, cutting and dragging, now even shifting weight onto the hand on the Archangel’s shoulder who remained frustratingly unresponsive, “that we didn’t manage to kill you in Hell doesn’t mean that Heaven cannot hold endless pains for you. Watch... your feet, traitor. Now sit down – voluntarily and immediately, or I will order Hastur and Michael to help you, and I shudder to think what could happen to your bones as a result.”

Michael appeared outraged by the very idea to let herself be commanded by Beelzebub, and Crowley’s lips twitched as if he tried a superior smile. Aziraphale wished he could rush in and remove his friend from near the managers – he was playing with fire and didn’t even notice. And wasn’t that his nature? Didn’t he have to cross borders and defend his ground over anything, consequences be damned? But Aziraphale sensed that the rules had changed, and he was not fully aware of whether Crowley shared this impression or drew conclusions from it. Everything here was derailed, unpredictable, out of control.

“Whatever Lord Beelzebub said,” was the first threatening intervention by Archangel Gabriel that day.

Michael contorted her mouth angrily. Aziraphale distinctly noticed that Uriel crossed her arms, wedging her hands between her upper arms and chest, giving the impression that she had to pull herself together so as not to smash anything, and he didn’t fully understand her anger, but decided for the time that it would be better if he left it alone.

Hastur, on the other hand, seemed to delight in the thought of breaking the other demon’s body. Not just his legs – his spine, pelvis, ribs, neck, skull. In the end, what was once a demon would be nothing but ashes and bone dust and shredded flesh and frayed skin. And even if he had to work with Archangel Michael…

“Crowley, I beseech you…” Aziraphale mumbled, trying desperately to smooth the waves before anything calamitous could happen, and the demon caught it; as his eyes slid over to the earthbound angel, Aziraphale shook his head imperceptibly. The demon hissed between clenched teeth, casting a warning glance back and forth between Beelzebub and Gabriel, but then pulled away from them and circled the table to fall into a chair next to Aziraphale, who had taken his seat in the meantime. A sidelong glance at his friend confirmed what the angel had suspected: in Crowley’s cramped hand there was a message similar to the one he had received. 

He leaned toward his friend, started to whisper, but the expression that reached him even through the dark glasses conveyed clearly: don’t.

Don’t put your finger into the wound before we know how deep it is.

The confusion never seemed to subside…

“Now that everyone has _finally_ arrived,” Gabriel spoke up imperiously without rising from his seat, “let us address the first and only point on the agenda.” His hands were now flat on the tabletop; he sat reclining and let his glance sweep over the supernaturals present. Beelzebub, remaining by his side, seemed to measure everyone with disinterested superiority, and her hand still rested beneath the Archangel’s suit collar; the sight alone made Aziraphale feel derided and he couldn’t properly tell why, or what he was supposed to do about it.

He held his breath.

Crowley stared at the message he still held in his clenched fist. He couldn’t even turn his head to face the managers.

“You are free,” Beelzebub croaked.

Everybody in the room experienced a start. Free? Whatever was that supposed to mean?

“We are free,” Gabriel corrected, “since, if the Almighty does not deign to provide us with clear orders – and if She accepts that our striving for Her plans, all our honest and upstanding work is destroyed and belittled, I see no reason why we should still subject ourselves to Her.”

Crackling and rustling whispers spread among the ranks in the back of the hall – angels and demons alike couldn’t help turning to one another, discussing whether they had heard right and interpreted it correctly. Sandalphon looked around, quite out of his depth, but also quite disgruntled; he made the impression of having difficulty following the head Archangel’s words on a basic level. A question seemed to be pressing in his consciousness, but he seemed to experience problems verbalizing it.

Uriel and Michael, conversely, seemed to have an easier time understanding the manager’s words and drive. While the former had her teeth firmly buried in her lower lip, the latter had closed her eyes and lowered her head, appearing to try fervently not to finish a painful train of thought.

The corner of Dagon’s mouth twitched a bit; Hastur, however, resembled a statue, was unreadable and motionless and fully untouched.

“Heaven and Hell are officially out of business with this day and conference,” the silvery Archangel continued, now joining his hands into one fist on the table, “the physical planes will remain untouched, so everyone who wishes to stay is welcome to do so. Our communities, however – our corporations are liquidated. I and Lord Beelzebub arrived at this decision together.”

“But this…” Sandalphon stammered, his eyes torn open and his hands erratically at the edge of the table, “this isn’t right. This doesn’t conform to the word… the Almighty’s Plan!”

“The Almighty,” Beelzebub grumbled, and the buzzing around her grew more piercing with every single sound, “has made us Her toy one ti…”

Here, Sandalphon interrupted, shouting and jumping to his feet, “Hold – your – despicable tongue, you little barbarian! I will not stand for you throwing dirt at our Lord, those who follow Her heavenly guidance and this place for a moment longer!”

“Sit down, Sandalphon,” Gabriel ordered grimly. His voice was rough, monotone and almost menacing. “And watch your mouth in front of Lord Beelzebub. Do understand that there is no guidance from Her – at least not to my knowledge. She left us to our own devices and Her rules upon creation. Not even I can hear Her or know Her will.” A grin tugged at the Archangel’s lips as he felt the gravity of his disclosures slowly sinking in.

Feebly Sandalphon slumped back into his seat. His face was blank; either he could not believe what he had heard or he simply would not.

Finally, Beelzebub got to finish her sentence, “The Almighty has made us Her toys for one time too many, honoured and less honoured guests. Just remind yourself – every single one has followed Her instructions, more or less grudgingly, and what was our reward for our faith and dedication?” Beelzebub drew a strained breath. “The idiotically grinning faces of the traitors making light of our – and, as we presumed, Her plans.”

Aziraphale felt like a tickle in the back of his neck – a tickle produced by needle-sharp claws – as the attentions of the assembled angels and demons shifted to him and his friend. Gabriel’s and Beelzebub’s glances were especially disconcerting. He tried to smile, to keep up an innocuous façade, but he knew just as well as the demon next to him that it was pointless. The opinions carried by the supernaturals were clear and firm… what wasn’t firm, however, was the consequences. Certainly, if the guidelines were no longer a factor, there would, consequently, be no reason to oust or persecute them any longer… but would that really be all?

Sandalphon leant back, coughing. His face was beet red and he made the impression of a man only barely containing a violent outburst.

Beelzebub pulled a face in disgust before she continued, “And I ask you, have there been consequences? Were they penalised by the higher power we all were faithful to?”

Silence.

Yet, Aziraphale sensed all-around hostility and confusion grow. The atmosphere was like sour wine that made him very drunk, yes, but also very dizzy and very ill. Something in him wanted to make him reach for Crowley’s arm, just to see whether he was still there, but he kept himself in check.

“There are no orders, no instructions – even the framework She left us is not worth the paper it’s written on, or the breath we waste in invoking it. If you still want to fight and suffer for the rules of someone who abandoned us as soon as She had made us, and who certainly is entertained by our toils, well, suit yourselves. But not us. Not anymore. I, for my part, will be making my own fate now. Gabriel and I, we have decided to go for self-employment.”

“And we’re not taking anyone,” the Archangel added.

Here, some more demanding voices roused from behind, but in the back of Aziraphale’s head, there was too loud of a turmoil to follow what they said. He turned toward Crowley, seeking help and support, but even he didn’t seem to know in nor out; he stared straight ahead lethargically in his usual slouchy sitting posture, arms crossed in front of his chest, lower jaw pushed forward. Aziraphale felt so lost in impressions and thoughts that he hardly could follow a single logical train of thought, and seeing that his friend wouldn’t help made him no more confident.

“What is now to become of us?” a random angel shouted, rising from the crowd in the back, “what goal shall we labour toward, Archangel?”

“Exactly! What will become of us?” a demon agreed.

“I suggest you find your own goals, Agliel,” Gabriel replied coolly, “You do have such a thing as a personality, yes? Your own free will? Try to use them, then you might find something that’s worth your while. The conference…” speaking thus, he rose and adjusted his tie, “… is closed. Peace be with you… or not. Whichever you prefer.”

As one, Gabriel and Beelzebub turned on their heels and marched out of the conference room without as much as a look back – and left utter perplexity. The crackling and rustling of whispers in the back grew to a roar as too many angels and demons at the same time started to argue their points, to quarrel or to threaten one another. 

Some left the room as if something were chasing them; Sandalphon, for instance. He and Dagon left, separately, but both in what seemed an urgent hurry, while Hastur remained seated with a lifted brow and drank in the discord that was stirred. The both remaining Archangels, in turn, appeared as if frozen.

Aziraphale felt thrown back into himself – but one thing ameliorated: at least now, Crowley turned to him, and his face expressed the same world-weary, confounding helplessness he felt, of course in Crowley’s very own, tinted-by-coolness-way. Of course, each of them had severed their respective ties to their employers – but none of them had ever expected it would have come to this. That this here could just… cease to exist.

What would be the consequences for Earth, for the humans? Many people put their faith in this. So much peace of mind was at stake here…

Aziraphale pressed his dry, fissured lips onto each other while holding Crowley’s glance. His trouble was less one of ‘whatever are we going to do?’ and more one of ‘whatever is going to happen – and how are we going to come to terms with it?’

Possibly it would be profitable to discuss this with Crowley over a fine lunch…


	6. I/6: Freedom - Michael and Uriel

Sandalphon had been the first being to jump up and storm off, perhaps in pursuit of the departed Archangel Gabriel; he left a thoroughly bewildered and nonplussed Uriel behind and a Michael in whose head the last events and announcements slowly started to click into place. Her mind worked in full throttle, jumped from conclusion to conclusion, made ideas come to fruition, develop and tumble down, painted pictures and devised plans, turned them about and about again to contemplate and test them. She comprehended that priorities had shifted, truths turned about and that things that had been important yesterday were meaningless today – not everything about it made a conclusive whole.

But not everything about it was negative. Not by far.

Uriel…

Gnawing her lower lip gently, Michael turned to her fellow Archangel. She contemplated her deputy’s sombre face, seeking for support and reassurance, the shimmer of the gold particles on her skin, the big, expressive eyes, and yet her mind floated into the immediate future. For a moment or two, she was all by herself with the euphoric expectation of what was to come, had locked out the upheaval and the clear warmth and the hectic turmoil of the conference room. Only then did she get up, put a hand on Uriel’s shoulder and bent down in order to whisper into her ear.

“Follow me.”

Uriel hurried to obey – to regain order and control of her limbs and to follow her superior’s lead, not turning back for a second. Michael led her out of the room, away from the crowd, away from the atmosphere of discussions and quarrels that were getting ever more vehement, maybe even spiralling out of control, away also from the echoing, waddling footfalls of Sandalphon’s. The pale one always peeked around corners before rounding them, and only as they had put two corners and three corridors between them and the hubbub, she allowed herself to reach for Uriel’s hand which immediately closed around hers. Uriel’s grip was firm and secure.

Adrenaline bubbled through Michael’s veins. She might have gasped in joy!

Tangentially, Archangel Michael noticed how untypical of her that was, how… unheard-of. Oh, an emotion, she had used to say with a raised eyebrow whenever she had grabbed hold of one of the little critters, bubbling and threshing within the otherwise calm and smooth and undisturbed sea of her inner life. The things that happened. Hello, little emotion – fascinating that one of your ilk dares to venture even close to me.

Then she had used to take the emotion and examine, investigate, scrutinize it, pluck it apart and dissect it until nothing had been left of it, until she had been back in her cool, unperturbed usual state of mind – but not now. Things had changed… things were too big now to be grasped by her own two hands and her inquisitive mind.

Nobody should see…

The pale Archangel rounded another corner before she abruptly stopped, let the surprized Uriel round her and finally pulled her close, stretched upward to her, grabbing one upper arm and her waist, and locked her in a kiss. 

Nobody should notice her lowering her guard, losing control and composure. 

Nobody should see what little emotion she was still capable of. 

Nobody should see the hunger, the desperation, the utter heavenly relief that she expressed with that gesture and judge Michael by it, since, by the Almighty, Michael was no deserter. She had not been disloyal one moment of her existence – doubtful, yes, but never disloyal, and for this, she was monumentally indebted to the golden one she held in her arms in these moments. 

She had submitted to being locked in a meatsuit and had approached the humans with patience and care, as long as they permitted it. She had overcome her hesitation and misgivings and overthrown the Morningstar, her own twin brother, preserve and protect, Muscle and Sword. She had spent centuries, ah, millennia keeping demons away from angels and humans. Next to Uriel she had been a warden and beacon of law and order, justice and enlightenment, had been diplomat and military leader, and she had made it through because Uriel, loyal, devoted soul, had always been around, listening, supportive, and had never let her forget her duties.

Michael had always been earnest, upright, strongminded, but now that nothing required her dutifulness anymore…

Uriel’s hands found her cheek and neck, warm, so utterly warm…

“Do you understand,” she muttered as the Archangels leant their foreheads against each other, “what this entails, my Heart? It is over, we are relieved of our burdens. Free to shrug off this…” she indicated down at her arm, “… this suffocating flesh. Free to leave this planet and its residents and their problems, our responsibility for them and to fly… to explore every corner of this cosmos.”

Her fingers dug into Uriel’s shoulder. It was bound to hurt, and yet, Michael couldn’t loosen her grip.

“True,” Uriel conceded, yet her lowered and solemn voice indicated that this wasn’t all that was on her mind, “true, we can… be unbound now. But is that all, my second sun? Do we not have to… are we not so involved with this, have applied so much strength and work, that we should make sure that none of it is wasted?”

“Forget about our travails, Uriel.” Tenderly, Michael stroked her cheekbone. “You see – maybe the apocalypse did not fail at all and we merely misinterpreted who it was for. Maybe not the humans and their realm were supposed to end; maybe it was us, with our framework and regulations, who the Almighty in Her wisdom deigned to terminate – and what else has just happened?” The corners of Michael’s mouth tugged ever so slightly upwards. It felt abnormal and unfamiliar to her. “Gabriel is in the past. The guidelines provided by the Almighty are in the past. Our task to protect the peoples of this astral body is in the past. There are so many worlds out there, and I want to visit them all. With you.” 

A smile bloomed on Uriel’s face, into these eyes, light and homely and radiant like amber. 

“With you, in the end.”

“Whatever will become of us?” Uriel asked – but there was no real tremor in her voice. It was a question full of curiosity, zeal and energy, full of hardly repressed enthusiasm for the future.

“That is the best thing about it.” Michael reciprocated the smile. “Whatever it is that we want.”

Thereby, both Archangels left their physical bodies to dart through the roof as ethereal spirit beings. Their bodies slumped down where they had stood, like marionettes whose strings were getting cut, staring into the void with glassy eyes, their limbs all askew.

They were found like this some time later by the aimlessly wandering Quartermaster, an angel of the Powers by the rank of Captain and name of Chamuel – he couldn’t bring himself to just leave his superiors lying there, no matter these were simply deserted skins. He found a way to Michael’s now abandoned office – a place that every single one of Heaven’s recruits dreaded to be called to since Archangel Michael’s roughness and unwaveringness were legendary – left all the doors open in his wake and carried first Michael’s, then Uriel’s empty husk into that safe place. He propped them up against a wall, made sure that neither posture nor clothing made a shameful impression, and carefully and reverently closed their eyes.

“Archangel Gabriel might have lost his faith,” he murmured an oath, kneeling and with one fist lifted to his heart, thinking it a bit ridiculous himself, “I, however, will not. I will preserve your bodies, Archangel Michael, Archangel Uriel, so you have them at your disposal should you ever return.”

Michael und Uriel, in the meantime, bodiless and liberated, were drunk on happiness in their dance between the stars. Michael was vaguely and blurrily visible in her form as a Seraph: six flaming wings that didn’t leave anything but an ambiguously human face discernible, and some dampened, crystal-clear light. Uriel had reverted to her primal form as a Throne, or Ophan: an amalgamation of interlocking, ever turning wheels, covered in eyeballs.

They were close, they were distant, they were body- and formless and still had never appeared this concrete and tangible to each other. In this state they were not bound by the laws of physics: in mere moments they could skip galaxies, round planets, eat heat off suns or drink snow and ice off frozen planets. Lightning prickled in their astral bodies without damaging the littlest atom. They raced comets and asteroids, relished the tingling of the particles in their tails. They let themselves be pulled close by black holes to divert their flight at the last possible moment; they let themselves be pierced by asteroids of fields, as wide as sight could reach, or space junk, and closed up the holes with a laugh.

On different planets they observed civilisations, beings they hadn’t even contemplated before and who, undisturbed, ran their errands. It was odd and still relieving to watch them for a while and then turn away without a further thought. Now and again they decided to descend onto a planet and make themselves known, with varying results; usually it was bewilderment and fear, occasionally immediate attack, and once they were instantly apprehended and driven away by that planet’s own spiritual guard. The angels merely assumed that they had sensed the foreign power and had feared the angels had plans of wresting jurisdiction from them there…

Michael und Uriel were free. Nothing could touch them anymore, nothing but their wills figured in their plans, paths and goals – and they enjoyed it tremendously.

They saw each other and sensed each other, that was all that was important; no caress, no however desperate kiss could ever come close to being, in their original, most basic and natural form, one energy, one stream, one mind, one power and one will.

Occasionally they wished it should never end.


	7. I/7: Freedom - Dagon

Dagon remembered.

Back then, robed in feathers, much too soft and light, much too clean. Those nuisances, scratching, pest-ridden. She should have had scales from the beginning, hard and resilient, and leathery fins. Back then, in the never-ending, gaping nothingness, in the much too thin, much too dry air, laden with dust particles – each littlest one had itched in her nose…

The demon couldn’t have left this place fast enough after the poultry had so decidedly ended what had kept her around. Nothing bound her anymore – she couldn’t accept its truth fully yet, but she had powered through, it was over, finally over, and she was free to wash her hands of all this. Dagon’s hands were cramped around her shoulders, and her gait was quick, steady and fervent.

Robed… in feathers…

The sky was dark and thickly clouded as Dagon left the tower, but there was no rain, and a piercing breeze carried the stench of the city towards her. The cold wind hurt her skin even through the clothing, seemed to prick at her face with thousands of hair-thin needles, but the demon paid no mind – not anymore. Dagon’s breathing was short and hectic, and she relished each breath she drew, for she knew it might very well be the last she had to partake of the much too thin, unclean and poisonous atmosphere. Soon she would again breathe what she was meant to breathe: water and liberty.

All she had to do was find the River Thames…

She had been assigned - or had assigned herself - to the armed forces back then, a warrior, dance of blades, dance of arrows, dance of spears, confusion and hypnosis on the battlefield. She had been good at it, expert, even – even their revered commander, Archangel Michael, had now and then shot her respectful looks, praised her, trained her personally as one of the strongest next to Uriel. She had also been different, however. She had been swift and unpredictable, fleet-footed, agile and flexible, fast and fleeting in a way that made it appear almost as if she were in many places at once. She had fought without a shield or armour and without a thought of consequences, a rainstorm among her opponent’s ranks. What a pity indeed that Heaven had lost this…

 _Rahab_ , multiple-voiced whispering raised up in the back of her head, but she laughed it down.

All too long she had thought she wasn’t going to take this any longer, locked in this moldy pit, in this excessively dry, thin and cool air. Every breeze irritated her delicate skin. Having lungs was… disconcerting. A nuisance. Air resistance had never been noticeable enough for her, had never provided the necessary security and stability. Ground beneath her feet – oh, two separate humanoid legs and feet! They should grant stability, and yet Dagon had never trusted them. 

The only spark of confidence in that miserable situation had been Beelzebub’s presence – Beelzebub had, in some ways, been a grim, silent companion in suffering, they had connected on a level Dagon was unable to specify and had done many a mischief together. But even this had lost its meaning now… Beelzebub should find her own fulfilment; Dagon would not miss her where she was going.

She never should have existed as an angel – never that fine-boned, breakable creature that she had been devised as by the Almighty. These annoying, unhandy wings on her back! How hard it had been to find a way to use and coordinate her separate legs into a walk, a run, not to mention flying, and whatever should she use these all too flimsy, reedy arms and fingers for? Her blood had been much too hot beneath her much too breakable skin, and then all these much too rigid bones, this unforgiving, stiff, unyielding skeleton… everything around Dagon had always been to light and flimsy, everything within her too inflexible, ballast and corset. Despite all her agility and the lacking resistance from outside she had never been able to move the way she thought was proper for her – she had been inhibited by her own unbecoming, much too stiff and cumbersome physique.

Angel of rain, angel of humidity and fertility…

 _Rahab_ …

Not anymore!

Never again!

Not looking left nor right, Dagon ploughed through the streets of the crowded city, ignored all the people who only narrowly managed to avoid her, pointed their fingers and laughed or fled with screams across streets or around corners, also ignoring the one person who approached and tried to grab her shoulders and ask whether she felt good, whether she were ill or in need of any help. She was blind and deaf to them – merely the whisper of the waves echoed in her ears, and she couldn’t wait to reunite with it.

She imbibed a mouth full of cold air and grimly relished the hatred and the revolted tickling with which her respiratory system reacted to it.

The growth of fish-like scales that had originated where Dagon held her own shoulders now extended down to her wrists, down half her torso and up her neck almost to her chin.

Her fingers and toes grew increasingly webbed, she knew it by the itch at those body parts.

The fingers themselves morphed: their tips grew ever broader and flatter, the joints bulgier, softly bent by nature, and lamellae ate into their down sides.

Her toes morphed: elongating and slimming down, they forced open the ragged shoes Dagon wore and spread to span the newly grown webbing.

Her thighs merged; what need was there for two separate legs if one single, muscular tail fin could provide so much more momentum?

Her skeleton grew slacker, loosened, disjointed in some places. Dagon needed all her self-control to not let the process arrive at its logical conclusion; not yet.

Her uniform jacket’s collar made as if to merge with her skin, putting a grotesque round of flexible spikes around her neck and shoulders.

The neck itself thickened, adjusting to the breadth of chin and chest and shoulders.

A luxurious, sail-like dorsal fin would grow out of her back…

Then the waves appeared in front of her eyes, the gurgling and swishing of steady aquatic movement. She could just barely smell the filthy River Thames water, and it already made her dream captivating dreams; to be able to finally fly the way she all the time should have…

 _Rahab_ …

Dagon hadn’t needed two opportunities to fall from grace. Even during her angelic existence, she had sneaked away now and then, had submerged into the newly created oceans, explored them all by herself and mad ethem her domain, her kingdom, and as a demon had posed to the ancient Mesopotamians as their god of humidity and fishing. Still: all the reverence, the chants, dances and sacrifices and prayers had paled in comparison to the fact that in these times, Dagon had found her way of adapting to the maritime surrounding, becoming a maritime creature herself. Swimming and winding between fish, cephalopods, algae and corals, she had turned up what she had been searching for all the time, and she had found new serenity, new elegance and new will to exist.

Ah, she had believed something would change for her, she could split away and fully claim the ocean as her habitat if she just went away and fell… but in truth she had merely exchanged one cage for another, the never-ending, celestial cage with the clear, cold, piercing air for the moldy-damp-filthy cage of the cellar in which it was humid, at least, but the air was still too thin for her to be comfortably inhaled. 

Lucifer had held her, imprisoned her once again. Lucifer had deceived them, all of them. 

Well, Dagon had persisted… Beelzebub had counted on her.

Beelzebub... Dagon's face formed a bitter smile as she thought back to her companion in suffering. Beelzebub had, with her own hands, cut these irritating bunches of plumage out of Dagon’s back and burnt out the wounds, had let Dagon pay the gracefully accepted plea with jolts of excruciating pain, with the stench of burned flesh and charred feathers and, most crucially, with her cries of agony, and had relished them.

Now and then she had loved Beelzebub, perhaps. Loved her with the awkward, icy cold and stiff, desperate, but bitterly earnest insufficiency of two women having lately lost their eyesight and trying to explain colours to the other.

Dagon was free of anger now – she felt it neither for the ones who had blinded them nor for the inadequate companions of her ordeal. Everything that remained was triumph, relief and freedom.

Dagon’s gait took on a waddling quality, stronger the closer she ventured towards the river. Now she could see the river, a greenish-brown brew in the distance, mixture of freshwater and saltwater, caught up and tamed, used as a shipping path and still, if one followed a bit farther downstream, broadening, deepening, unpredictable and unscrutinised. Could one ever really tame a stream? Dagon hoped not. The demon crossed streets, parks and fences without minding her step; the waves were calling out for her, silencing the voices in the back of her head that addressed her by her disowned angelic name, dead for so long. She was more than willing to follow the waves’ lure.

Finally… finally she had reached the bank. Her legs connected now down to her heels – she only kept the feet for a second longer because she had to stand there another moment. The fins her toes had grown into already dipped into the water, and the waves toyed with them quite like a little brother who bid his long-lost sister a warm welcome. Along the sides of this mermaid tail, as well as along her spine and the elongated, strengthened arms and on the back of her head Dagon now carried fins, tapering in spikes. Her eyes grew stolid in their sockets and overgrew with a translucent protective layer to replace the lids, and thereby, they lost their usefulness outside of the water.

_Rahab_ …

Dagon would never remember again – I will forget you ever existed, she thought before she lifted her hands to her cheeks and, working a final miracle, dug a deep set of gills down her neck. Sharp pain stung in them upon their first intake of cool, earthly air.

Fare thee well, Rahab! May we never meet again! I will not miss you, nor the memory of you.

Then, she plunged headfirst into the river and knew she was home at last the very moment in which the waves unified over her dorsal fin, as the water pushed the surface air out of her fresh gill system, as her field of vision cleared and sharpened, her new eyes adapting slowly, as her arms pulled the water close and pushed it away again, as the first swimming strokes pulsed through her body like fresh energy. The water tasted harsh, bitter and nutritious in her gills, its damp tepidity and the current was profitable to the resilient and sleek skin and to the fins that followed its every move. To be able to breathe again, in the end! At last her no-longer-rigid body nestled into the longing embrace of the sea, gliding along, effortlessly carried by the wet element, released of everything.

Greedily, Dagon imbibed water and pushed herself along, downstream, heading for the open sea, swim faster, faster still, just get away…

Perhaps she would find her way back to the spirit of Mesopotamia… to herself as a goddess.

Who knew?


	8. I/8: Freedom - Archangel Raphael and His Followers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please excuse the monster chapter, esteemed reader. I didn't find a way to make a sensible cut.  
> Thank you dearly for reading, and for your kudos!  
> Enjoy!

A handful of low-ranking angels, perhaps twelve or thirteen individuals, assembled after the conference, swarm-like, casting nervous looks all around. They were fundamentally different except for one small thing: they all wore Archangel Raphael’s sigil as pins on the lapels of their suits. Despite the less than appreciative opinion that celestial officials had of that Archangel, they had mostly been left alone, mainly because they laid low and tried to not be at odds with anyone. That was not to say nobody ever looked at them down their noses… 

Now, however? It seemed time to take action.

“Do you think this is for real?” A nervous, lanky angel spoke thus, Mumiah by name; he was an astute scientist and medical doctor, but quite awkward when it came to social interaction. The light suit he wore looked about as appropriate to him as socks to sandals.

“What – do you think our bosses have unprecedentedly developed a sense of humour?” A plump angel with a high ponytail; her name was Isda and her office was to provide all living things with food. She spoke with bitter sarcasm and an eyebrow raised. “No, darling, this is completely real. If you don’t believe it, pinch yourself.”

“Can we stop teasing each other?” A tall, pale and waxy, even exhausted-looking angel, Assiel, the doctor, Raphael’s deputy; her hands with which she brushed a strand of ash-blonde hair from her forehead were bony and emaciated. Still, she commanded utter deference of everyone around. “Please. Friends – this is our opportunity. We just have to get the key somehow.”

“The key.” Ambriel, bodyguard, angular and awe-inspiring on the outside, soft like a security blanket on the inside, was embracing his upper body with his arms. His voice was sluggish and scratchy. “And where would a random stranger find that?”

Assiel replied thoughtfully, “I would look for it in Gabriel’s office. I imagine he hid everything of any sort of importance right there.”

“Wait, wait.” Mumiah now pushed his hands out in a questioning, but also deflecting gesture; his dark eyes hurriedly shifted from face to face. “Who tells us there is a key at all? What if… if an Archangel’s word or will is necessary to open one of these cells?”

“Mumiah, really, now.” Isda, chewing on her lower lip, sounded discouraged. “Do you absolutely have to say something like that? What do we do in that case indeed? Do we have to stop Gabriel – or contact Michael or Uriel and ask them to help us?”

“Uriel should be susceptible.” Assiel sounded lost in thought. “She is his sister. She should like to see him released now that there is no longer a reason…”

Silence. They all wanted to believe it, but couldn’t quite – the circumstances were too strange, too convoluted, and too… well, too ardently kept under lock and key. Nobody but the Archangels knew of Raphael’s predicament; the majority of the heavenly host believed that he had merely snuck away and was now living alone in some niche of the universe in which he could only be found if he desired. Had Assiel not acted as the Archangel’s representative, sorting out his affairs after his disappearance, she wouldn’t have found the documents detailing his fate; not meant for her eyes, ostensibly. Even the whys and wherefores of his imprisonment were nebulous to Assiel.

Nobody would care to release him of his chains now… nobody but them.

Nobody except those who had sworn allegiance to him.

“We have to try.” Amitiel, angel of truth, finally raised her voice; her harmless, frail and youthful appearance hardly suggested how much knowledge and attention and acceptance for all evil and deviant was inside her. Her glance glided over the present angels; some avoided her, chewing on their lower lips or clenching their fists, but a few met that look and felt comforted and encouraged by it. Rachmiel who was standing next to her put an arm around her shoulders. “We owe as much to Raphael, our teacher and guiding star.”

“What she says,” Assiel murmured, and the angels around mostly nodded hesitantly.

“I would suggest we split up.” Ambriel stepped forward, measuring the angels quickly in turn. “Me and… Mumiah, Zahariel, maybe Amitiel so we know if someone is close, we’re turning Gabriel’s office inside out. You others, you can go to the prison wing and see if you find anything… any kind of mechanism or lock… which makes me think, in that case you should probably go with them.” He addressed these words to Mumiah who seemed much in accord.

“I have another suggestion,” Assiel, however, said tensely, “Yes, Ambriel, take Zahariel and Amitiel and search Gabriel’s office. I’m going to take Mumiah and Och to the prison wing – the less attention we draw, the better – and the rest of you look for the Archangels. Try to persuade them to help us – but don’t despair if they refuse. We’ll free Raphael either way, with or without their help. We’ll meet back here in, I would say two hours’ time?”

“What if nobody is back by then?” Achaiah, angel of patience.

Isda laughed, running her fingers through her bangs. “You’re exactly the one to ask that,” she grinned, patting her on the shoulder. “They were delayed. It’s not like anything could really happen to us.”   
Then she gave Assiel an affirmative nod. “I am in favour. Let’s do it that way.”

Said and done. Scientists Mumiah and Och joined Assiel, who ran to the prison wing on her stork legs; Zahariel and Amitiel gathered behind Ambriel’s broad back; the remaining angels divided into groups of two or three in order to comb the hallways and chambers of Heaven in search for the remaining Archangels. Everyone was tense. Nobody said a word. Finally they would be acting upon their calling…

Assiel’s group met no one on their way; the silence through which the click of their shoes echoed was ghostly. Had everyone just abandoned this, up and simply left? Of course, it was unsettling to feel the protection and patronage of a commander break away… but should it really result in everyone throwing away everything they had struggled and worked for in the centuries past? In the end, it had been this that had given them a goal, purpose, direction, peace of life.

Assiel, for her part, still believed, Gabriel be damned. What of the Almighty not meddling? She had given the angels their tasks. She had provided guidance, rules, a framework, and had left it to Her children to act on it. As Assiel saw it, withdrawing was the only thing She could have done in order to avoid compromising Her creation’s free will.

The isolation cells were conveniently close to the military wing, and nothing indicated their grim purpose but the heavy-duty doors that secured the rooms. “Which cell holds Raphael?” Och asked, an angel of middling build, dark and rather close-mouthed, and Assiel shrugged. 

“I’m afraid we will need to open them all,” she confessed to her lack of knowledge while Mumiah and Och already bent down over the chunky handles and locks, “and hope that we are in time…”

“Get an eyeful of this,” mumbled Mumiah, completely ignoring Assiel and running three fingers over the mechanism, “that’s extremely modern… I’m not quite sure if we can crack it. Assiel?” He turned back to her, who raised an eyebrow, over his shoulder. “Tell the others to look for key cards.”

“Key cards?” Assiel reiterated, already reaching for her cell phone.

But Mumiah was no longer susceptible to her words; discussing heatedly with Och, he bent over the lock again. Assiel hurriedly dialled Ambriel’s number, not listening to the scientists’ conversation – or rather dispute – about which tool could most profitably be used to break open the lock without any dismal side effects.

Mumiah advocated unscrewing the surface elements and trying to create a short circuit that would break the electronics.

And if that would lead to an irreversible lockdown, Och objected fervently. No, too risky.

Did they have a better idea, now?

Assiel, having finished the call and put the phone away, crossed her arms and prepared to step between the brawlers at any time. Mumiah and Och separately were cool-headed, single-minded creatures with very logical and goal-oriented minds. Mumiah and Och concerned with the same problem, however, were ticking time bombs waiting for an opportunity to overheat and explode into one another’s faces.

Yes, Och had a better idea indeed. They suggested that several corrosive substances be used to create a solution that would be able to eat through the metal. One could bypass the lock, would not have to worry about a lockdown and…

And there might be someone trapped in there who had no access to protective clothing, Mumiah countered, flaring up. Did Och really want to risk Raphael breathing in caustic fumes? Not to mention that he could touch the substances or the surfaces they had attacked and seriously injure himself!

Oh, Mumiah shouldn’t underestimate Raphael. The honoured Archangel certainly knew when to stop the non-essential process of breathing… and he was definitely dextrous enough to manoeuvre unscathed through a chemical hole!

These chemists, Mumiah hissed. These accursed chemists only rested once they had liquefied or etched away something solid, regardless of any danger to life and limb!

Oh yes? Physicists, conversely, were only satisfied once their faces had taken spark showers…

“Shhhhhhhh!” Assiel suddenly interrupted the scientists’ argument, “Someone’s coming.”

Mumiah and Och fell silent; indeed, steps were approaching. Assiel, pushing back against the wall and telling the scientists to disappear around the corner, held up four fingers.

Four pairs of legs. And a mix of voices…

Assiel’s brow lifted again as she managed to discern the first voice – militant, commandeering tone, clearly irritable, nobody she knew. _So there was someone remaining besides them?_

“… outrageous! As if the honoured Archangels would be doing this to their ally! I hope you all know that I am only committing this transgression – this insubordination – to prove that my Archangels’ blamelessness is unchallengeable and that your accusations are… outrageous.” Someone made a weak attempt at appeasing him, but the speaker cut the angel off, “ **Outrageous!** ”

Assiel recognized three of the angels who rounded the corner only moments later – Rachmiel, Hasdiel and Achaiah; the fourth angel she only knew by appearance. He had piercing, unsettling light blue eyes, tightly combed-back grey hair and a beard that stuck out from his face in an abstruse equilibrium; his white, studded-with-gold uniform showed he was a middle-ranking member of the celestial military. His gait was so energetic and hasty that the other angels had trouble keeping up. Of paramount importance, however, was the fact that he carried in his hand the coveted key card, embellished with the sigil and a photo of the impassively staring Michael.

The soldier’s impatience and contempt went palpable as his glance settled on Assiel who stepped out into the corridor again. She amused herself for a moment by imagining his beard bristling even farther away from his face with anger.

“Are you the leader of these… _elements_?” he barked at her, “I demand to know what evidence you have for your accusations.”

Assiel soothingly lifted a hand; behind her, Mumiah and Och left their shelter. “I had no intention of debasing anyone,” the healer tried to defuse the situation, “and I fully acknowledge your authority and status as a military official. My name is Assiel, I’m of the Choir of Virtues – may we speak to Michael or Uriel? It is somewhat urgent.”

“Chamuel,” the soldier snapped, “Choir of Powers – Quartermaster in the celestial army. And no, the Archangels cannot see you now.”

“They are gone,” Rachmiel, appearing anxious, spoke up. The Quartermaster gritted his teeth upon this revelation.

“Only their physical bodies remain… empty husks,” Hasdiel, another angel of benevolence, added.

Assiel nodded solemnly and hoped she radiated respect and compassion as well as professional gravity. “I do understand… and I am sorry. That, then, will leave us to negotiate, Chamuel.”

Chamuel snorted haughtily and signalled with a mere glance that were he to decide, he wouldn’t even be near here – that he felt gravely insulted by this conduct of his fellow angels. “I do not know what we have to negotiate about, Assiel of the Virtues. It would be hard to overstate my anger over your determination to stain my Archangels’ reputations.”

The healer shook her head no. “Nobody intends to do that,” she continued trying to bring the embittered soldier to her side, “but as much as I recognize and respect your loyalty to your Archangels, I must ask you to support our devotion to ours. Nobody will pass judgment; all we want is to free Archangel Raphael.” Assiel’s expression and voice fished for sympathy. “Would you not agree this is a noble cause?”

Chamuel measured her from head to toe; Assiel didn’t budge and couldn’t help but note that the forbidding façade of the soldier had somewhat fissured. Loyalty, responsibility and dutifulness, comradeship and solidarity were notions he, as a military functionary, had to understand and promote – most likely he couldn’t obstruct their way any further without compromising his world view. “You won’t find anything,” he mumbled, turning toward the first door with the key card, “and certainly not Archangel Raphael. Everybody knows he’s out there by himself, advocating peace and pacifism, ever since the calamities of the Old Testament…”

“We will see about that in two minutes…” Achaiah murmured; Assiel shot her a defensive look, but either Chamuel hadn’t listened or decided to ignore the proposition.

The first three rooms he opened were vacant indeed; the soldier must have felt rather reinforced in his derogatory feelings as the fourth door swung open and the heterogenous group beheld a creature. A tall creature dressed in a brown, sack-like robe, a rope like a belt around his waist, with a weather-worn face, long, rather untidy hair and a hint of beard, inquisitive eyes and a pale aura of iridescent green light. He made the impression of one expecting someone – at least, he faced the other angels dead-on and his expression was one big question mark – but very surprised at seeing who had arrived.

“Greetings, soldier,” he said politely, the hands locked behind his back.

Chamuel petrified on the spot. “I will be dam…” he muttered.

“Raphael.” The relief in Assiel’s diction was evident as she darted past Chamuel; she had already ventured far into the cell as she remembered whom she faced, pulled herself together, cleared her throat and bowed to the Archangel. “I am glad to see you again, Raphael – please forgive that we only come to your aid now that… we were… our hands were tied. Is everything in order? Are you injured?”

Raphael merely shook his head as he approached Assiel and spread his arms. “Don’t be shy, Assiel,” he asked her, strenuously keeping himself calm and collected, judging by the sound of his voice, “I missed you too. All of you.”

Whereby Assiel and Raphael hugged one another.

Chamuel stared, only now and then mumbling something that sounded like _‘insubordination’_ or _‘fraternization’_ or _‘unheard of’_ ; Hasdiel who had remained while the others had made to gather the rest of the group shot him a reassuring look. “Relax… not everyone has to grovel to everyone else who’s some ranks higher.”

Chamuel didn’t grace this with an answer.

The Archangel walked toward the exit as he and his second-in-command had finished their greeting – no, he was at perfect health, though he had occasionally been bored to tears – to greet the other angels by the same means.

The Quartermaster bowed, more out of dutifulness and reflex than real veneration, as the prisoner turned to face him. His anger had dissipated; the soldier seemed to struggle for upright attitude and self-certainty. “I had no idea,” he grumbled.

Raphael smiled at him while the last of his friends stepped back from him. “Don’t berate yourself, Chamuel of the Powers,” he calmed the soldier, “it is not, and has never been, your responsibility. Apart from that, I am resentful of no-one, not even Gabriel. Now tell me, everyone… what happened here? How come you can release me now, and how come nobody is around save you? What did… what happened to Uriel?”

Working together, the angels filled Raphael in as far as they could. The healing Archangel listened eagerly, nodding now and then, and concluded that this was a setback as well as a valuable opportunity. Apart from this, it would be essential – speaking thus, he fixed his eyes on Chamuel – for them to assemble and keep together the little splinters of the celestial community that remained.

Chamuel was cautious and visibly still sceptical as he first addressed the freed Archangel. His posture was straight, inflexible and very reserved. “If you want to suggest that I and my troops should fall under your command…”

“Troops?” Och tore open their eyes. “There are _more_ of us staying back? Why didn’t you tell us?”

Raphael lifted his hand, pacifyingly. “Nothing of the like. I do not dream of undermining your allegiance or Uriel’s and Michael’s authority. I plan to negotiate with you as their stand-in, and I plan to plead with you for your assistance and full cooperation. I will go to Earth as I planned centuries ago – and I presume many of my allies will follow.”

Assiel clenched her lips and nodded; looking around proved she wasn’t alone in her decision.

“However, I am also aware that the termination of our spheres set the demons free as well – and should we run into them, we might need assistance keeping us and the humans safe. All too few of us can hold their own in combat.”

“In return,” Assiel added swiftly, “we will share everything we find or invent. We will heal you if you get injured. We will be two halves of a whole, working together.”

“I understand.” Chamuel nodded, having markedly slowed down, his piercing blue eyes somewhat dimmed, fully factitious. “Well, I believe you will understand that I cannot make this decision by myself. I will have to bring this before the handful who have remained… we can only make such a weighty decision together.”

Raphael nodded; a grin creased his mouth. “So be it,” he affirmed, “let us both assemble our companions, and we will make plans for the future. Fine! I could hardly have dreamed of a more positive first day of my newfound freedom.”


	9. I/9: Freedom - Aziraphale and Crowley

“Are you quite alright?” were the first timid words Aziraphale addressed Crowley with – only after they had left the building side by side and descended the stairs to London, bustling and vivid as usual. So far their conversation had been entirely non-verbal.

_Let’s bounce, angel._

_Do we take the main entrance?_

_Let’s._

The last thing they had heard before leaving the conference room had been the commandeering voice of the angel Aziraphale identified as his Quartermaster, who sharply reminded the assembled angels of their discipline and duty.

Up to this point the demon had walked absentmindedly and in silence, staring at the sidewalk, both hands in his pockets. Now Crowley shrugged, pushing his head back slightly. “Perfectly alright, angel, why do you ask?” he replied, hissing slightly, but Aziraphale was not intimidated.

“We should talk. A perfect occasion for a good lunch…”

Crowley grumbled. “‘m not hungry.”

Aziraphale shot him a questioning glance. “We are never hungry, Crowley. Being an angel kind of goes with that.”

The demon grimaced contemptuously. “Sometimes I wonder if you do that on purpose or if you are just like that. If it just… happens.” There was no real sting in this remark.

Of course I do it on purpose, Aziraphale thought – but he shook his head and let it rest. “No lunch, then. If you’re so decidedly against it. But…”

“Damn it, let’s go have lunch. If you so insist.”

The angel smiled to himself. He knew that it was easier to have a fruitful discussion with a full stomach and calm nerves, and he knew that Crowley shared this knowledge.

They silently made their way to a cute little Indian restaurant they had wordlessly agreed on because of its proximity and its strong, tasty dishes. They sat down awkwardly and ordered listlessly. Not even the atmospheric ambience with statues, brightly painted walls and translucent curtains which beautifully filtered the sunlight did much to cheer them up. Only as the powerful, invigorating aromas of curry, turmeric and roasted meat rose into their noses did the supernaturals liven up a bit.

“So. What, now, do we think of what just…” Aziraphale began cautiously as the bowls in which their food had been served were half empty, but Crowley interrupted him with a mere shrug.

“Who cares,” the demon grumbled, wiping his mouth and letting his jaw grind a little, “if you ask me it was high time that someone up there – and down there, too – finally drew consequences. And as far as we are concerned – angel, we’ve had nothing to do with the shitheads for some time now.”

“Crowley, your English is slipping again.”

The demon parodistically flapped his lips open and close a few times. “What I mean is,” he continued at last, placing one hand palm up on the table, “nothing changes for us. Except maybe – if we are lucky – that they’re no longer breathing down our necks and waiting for opportunities to do us in.”

“I didn’t mean ourselves so much.” Aziraphale made a small helpless gesture as Crowley tilted his head and gazed at him inquiringly. “I meant… all of them.” A hand gesture encompassed the room, but of course he meant more. So much more. “There are people out there – at least I think so – who rely on us. Not just me and you, you know, but… Heaven. Hell. The promise of salvation. Who will protect the believers and the needy now? Who will take care of the souls of the dead when the angels and demons are no longer…”

“Oh, some workaholic will,” Crowley said, leaning back and turning toward a window, “besides, who cares? People have proven more than once they have no need of us – neither for promises of salvation nor threats of evil. No, angel, relax… we have looked after them for centuries. Not entirely voluntarily, but still. Now it’s our turn… we deserve it.” His gaze was almost searing as he turned back to Aziraphale who grappled visibly with his calm and peace of mind. “After what the bigwigs have thought themselves entitled to…”

He didn’t have to finish the sentence – and although Aziraphale thought he was right, and let him know it with a smile, he wasn’t entirely willing to shed his angelic nature and the sense of duty that went with it. No, if someone asked him for help – if someone called him – he would be there. This was open to the demon too, of course.

“What worries me a bit is the old turtleneck,” Crowley admitted, tearing his Naan bread into bite-sized pieces. “He’s up to something, I can feel it. I can smell it. And believe me, angel, we won’t like it once he drops the bomb.”

Aziraphale nodded. A concern he could understand. “So what will we do?”

Crowley shrugged. “Whatever _can_ we do?” he countered. “For the moment everything looks pretty rosy. And maybe I’m wrong for once. G- Sa- Whoever, I hope I’m wrong.”

“You know, there are more than enough pagan gods you could call upon…”

Crowley gave him a look that asked him to graciously shut up if it wasn’t too much trouble, thanks very much, but in a decidedly playful, big-brother-like manner. It was an expression that Aziraphale liked to see in Crowley because it meant relaxation and calm – so he smiled to himself and reached for his glass.

Angel and demon finished their meal in silence, and finally they simply sat side by side at the empty table. The quiet was almost palpable.

“Let’s go,” said the demon after a long period of silence, pulling his jacket closer around his body, “I’m getting all sorts of cabin fever. Are you paying? I’ll go make sure that nobody’s boxed us in.”

Something was different this time – Aziraphale sensed it as he climbed into the Bentley (nobody had boxed them in) and buckled in, as he noticed and didn’t comment upon the demon giving him a sidelong smile. He sensed cautious joy soaked with suspicion and restraint – as if Crowley actually wanted to do a happy dance but didn’t trust the situation nearly enough to give in to the impulse. Maybe it was just like that, he thought, clinging to the door handle as the driver pressed the accelerator and left the parking space with screeching tires. Maybe it was just the case that, especially with having been through what they had, with centuries of their experience, one lost confidence in the good grace of one's own destiny. Maybe one, then, simply had to inspect every single vaguely beneficial thing that happened from every possible angle, dissect it, check it for catches and traps before one could fully accept and relish it.

In that regard… maybe it would be profitable for both of them if they relaxed a little?

After all, not every day a whole bunch of creatures were granted their long-awaited freedom…

It was silent for a few minutes – not even the radio croaked. Aziraphale couldn’t help but stare at Crowley, who was gazing straight ahead with almost comical absorption, with a constantly widening grin on his face. As the demon finally noticed – or: failed to ignore it any longer – and turned his face towards his friend, the grin was already so wide that it hurt the corners of the angel’s mouth.

Crowley clearly wanted to inquire – wanted to know what was so damn funny now – but that vanished from his expression as Aziraphale first chuckled, then giggled and finally burst out in hearty laughter. At first he looked surprised, almost shocked, but at the last he couldn’t hold back and joined in.

A dam was broken; finally relief and bliss could grasp the two immortals.

The Bentley echoed with the mixed laughter of angel and demon.

Contrary to his original plans, Crowley didn’t take Aziraphale home at once. Angel and demon decided that they would go for a walk, maybe have a little ice cream or go to the amusement park – just throw themselves into the fray. Have a little fun. Contemplate the people around them not as assignments or protégés, but simply as contemporaries.

They ended the day on a park bench far from the centre of commotion, under a velvet black night sky, but with a fine overview of the flashing and rotating carousels and roller coasters. The moon seemed pale and sickly, outshone a thousand times by the amusement park’s lights. The voices of the people reached all the way to them. Crowley was enjoying the last threads of his cotton candy while Aziraphale had thrown the remains of his chocolate-covered strawberries into a dumpster about twenty minutes ago.

Aziraphale seemed restless. He moved his fingers erratically, turned to the demon, then turned away again, opened and moistened his lips. A twitch in the direction of his neighbour went through his left arm from shoulder to fingertips, but he seemed to think better of it halfway through and pulled his hand back. He opened and closed his mouth without making a sound. His fingers clasped and loosened again at regular intervals in front of his stomach; he clenched a fist, relaxed it again, seemed to turn gently to Crowley, but soon sat straight again. Crowley noticed this after a few minutes and watched it from the corner of his eye with mixed amusement and lack of understanding.

But finally, after he had thrown away the cotton candy stalk – or just dropped it carelessly on the grass – he turned fully to Aziraphale, who was looking at him as if he had just woken up here and had not the faintest inkling where he was nor who shared this bench with him. “You’re going to touch me, amirite?”

Aziraphale muttered something unintelligible in the direction of his clasped hands. Was there a hint of a blush on his face?

But Crowley wasn’t finished yet, “I don’t mean like back then, put out a hand in front of the demon and if he walks into it it’s his own fault. I mean a real touch. I mean as if you meant it, not just a random accidental brush of which you can say later, when I ask you what that was about, that it was nothing. Oh, I was just careless with my hand. Don’t you worry about it, dear.” The last R had a downright malicious emphasis and expansion to it.

The angel remained silent for a few seconds, looking around avoidantly before answering, “… possibly.”

Crowley smirked. “Oh, don’t give me ‘possibly’. You know damn well you do.”

“I really do wish you were less…”

“Yessssssssss?”

“… less… gleeful in such a situation.”

Crowley chuckled. “Can you blame me? I mean, you contemplate a simple pat on the shoulder and stumble and stammer as if you were considering spitting in communion wine.”

There was clear disgust on Aziraphale’s face as he turned towards the demon. “Would you be less vulgar, dear boy? I beseech you!”

“Ah… so we change the desire to pat the demon on the shoulder into the desire to slap the demon.” A hiss, amused, challenging, mocking.

“How can you be like that, Crowley?”

“How can I be like _what_?”

“Like… this exhilarated at the mere thought that I could hit you. You know I would never.”

“I know as well,” replied Crowley, lowering his head so that he could glance at Aziraphale over his glasses, “that you're not too enthusiastic about the idea that I – or anyone – could touch you.”

“Your point being…?”

“My point, angel, is that when you push your limits like this, things have changed, and this demon here is pretty impressed with it. He would applaud for encores if this were a concert.”

“I managed to conclude that from your words. What doesn’t follow quite that easily, however, is why you absolutely have to use this crude idiom of yours to express your accord.”

Crowley gulped. “My… what?”

Now it was Aziraphale’s turn to display a superior, condescending expression. “You heard me.”

“Did you gobble down a dictionary this morning or what?”

Aziraphale said nothing – shrugging his shoulders, he turned his gaze back to the park, which wallowed beneath them in nocturnal life. It was probably a bad idea… hopefully Crowley had been distracted by his words, or at least pushed back.

After a brief silence in which Aziraphale allowed himself to hope, Crowley shifted closer to the angel and continued where they had left off, “Now, regarding that skin contact…”

“Would you graciously let it rest already?” We have been over this, and no good comes from it! Maybe there had been a little too much emphasis in Aziraphale’s voice…

“Not without good reason.”

“I never could have,” it bubbled out of the angel before he had been able to think about it, “without a doubt, I mean, I never could have known exactly whether it would be alright for you…”

Various possibilities to refute this fluttered through Crowley’s head in these moments – even if a force inside him tempted him to roaring laughter. He opted – mostly to protect his friend’s temper – for the factual variant without any value judgment, “It _is_ okay for me, angel – absolutely okay. Was – well, almost always. Will always be. So, I’ll tell you what, if you don’t make something of your noble undertaking very soon, I’m doing it for you.”

Aziraphale’s eyes became doubtful, suspicious, reserved. “What are you playing at?”

“We could start with that.” Crowley leant his back against the wooden beams of the bench and stretched one arm behind his friend; he twitched a little and grimaced but made no move to elude. “See? It’s not half bad, that.”

Aziraphale said nothing; but he had to admit, although the increased physical proximity had felt strange and a bit oppressive at first, he was getting used to it. Maybe Crowley was right. It wasn’t half bad.


	10. I/10: Freedom - Hastur and I/11: Freedom - Beelzebub and Gabriel

Duke Hastur was the last to remain at the conference table in Heaven. Not just the last demon – the last living thing. He had been so caught up in soaking up all the brilliant discord and disputes, the rampant discord in the air, that not even the smallest spark of conscious attentiveness had been left for his surroundings.

Then the room was suddenly empty, the last angels and demons with their various aversions and threats out the door, and Hastur was alone. Alone in that repulsively unsoiled and unclouded heavenly atmosphere, under this light, so bright that it hurt his dilated pupils, and in the silence that resounded in his ears, sucking like a vacuum.

Only now that he slowly woke up did the demon Duke’s thoughts begin to slothfully move: what exactly was he planning to do now? Beelzebub had probably overridden the chain of command… what did that mean for him now?

Whose orders would he carry out in the future?

Which goal would he dedicate himself to?

What would he do with himself and his time…?

He couldn’t just stagger over Earth or through Hell or wherever like the flash bastard, with no purpose, pretending the whole universe was there for his amusement!

At first this thought was followed by an embarrassed silence in the back of Hastur’s head. The universe really seemed to have chosen him as its personal punching ball – first he lost Ligur, with whom he had reached an understanding to the extent that they had been able to have whole conversations only in grunts and growls, and lost him, too, to an upstart and traitor who would not even recognize the Great Plan if it broke his nose and the goofy sunglasses on it and gouged his stupid snake eyes out with the shards like with oversized, sharp spoons, then some less-than-significant human boy had made a joke out of him, then the apocalypse had been a failure, and then… this had happened. Had the whole universe conspired to spoil Hastur’s moderate sinful existence?

The demon grumbled and shuffled towards the elevator connecting Heaven and Hell. At least he could leave this place now, that would probably not be a bad start. But what should he do afterwards?

What was a simple hellish Duke without Satan to make him see sense time after time and guide his steps on the way to the obliteration of... all of this?

Hastur thoughtfully pressed the button for the deepest basement – and not even that was in any way close to the Pit where the noble first Fallen had set up his headquarters. Hastur had to go back to Hell since he had no other place to go – nowhere else that was waiting for him or meant anything to him. Those poorly maintained, damp, contaminated, mouldy and dirty walls and vaults were the only home he had ever known.

Hell was empty as he arrived. Completely lifeless; nothing down here but damp stone, sparking strobe lights, abandoned workplaces with files jumbled wildly. The demons had vanished as well as the sinful souls. An impulse wanted to claw to the surface of his mind, an impulse to let everything burn down, maybe to perish in that fire, howling and crowing, but he grunted gruffly and fought it back. Should he, too, contribute to his general lack of purpose? And suicide? That he would even think of stooping so low…

Apart from that – could his own fire harm him at all…?

He strolled senselessly through the once so thickly populated and narrow corridors of Hell, himself unsure of what he assumed he was looking for, and imagined the future in dull shades of grey, green and black. He would probably be the only one who would not simply run… and maybe it would benefit him, earn him a commendation if Lucifer at any time…

It was this thought that ultimately made Hastur freeze. He stopped dead and raised his hand to scratch one of the growths on his face that instantly broke open and emitted a foul-smelling secretion.

Right – Lucifer! Satan had not been present upstairs! He hadn’t even been addressed, and suddenly Hastur wondered if what the managers had announced had even been brought before the Lord of Hell. What might have happened to him?

What would he have to say about Lord Beelzebub’s ideas…?

Hastur didn’t think much further. With vigorous stride he turned to the Pit, the centre of the infernal possessions in which Lucifer had his private quarters as well as his office – the only private quarters in all of Hell. This was another reason why very, very many demons despised and hated him with searing power.

He himself? Oh, was there anything that Duke Hastur didn’t hate and despise with his whole black heart?

The further he advanced, the more Hastur was surprised: there was something to be heard. More than his own steps, dull dripping and crackling sparks. At first it was just distant white noise, a hint of… well, something; but the closer Hastur approached the noise, the more it differentiated itself, and the Duke allowed himself something like hope, no matter how nasty-heavenly it might be.

There were voices; not just one, but two voices. And they seemed to be arguing violently. Hastur deliberately took a particularly heavy, loud, rumbling step to let the speakers know he was approaching – he didn’t want to witness any uncomfortable situations.

His plan seemed to be working; as soon as he was able to pick individual words out of the argument one of the two voices – the female one – gave a sharp “Shhhhhhh!” In the silence that followed, the Duke heard something completely different; something that made him wish to instantly turn around, as it stung up to his ossicles. It was… impossible to define; it sounded a little like the rustle of waves or the crackle of a campfire – like the humming and hissing of breaking-down technology – or wind that combed through treetops, even if Hastur vaguely thought he could make out words, even if they were words he hadn’t heard and hadn’t been able to use for centuries.

Each of these words seemed to burn his ear canals…

But that wasn’t possible! The presence of this whisper indicated the work of the poultry.

“What is it, sinner?” It was good to hear this half sentence – in earthly language, which was at least non-magical, and full of bitter anger.

“Can’t you hear the steps, Lucifer?” she sounded tense, probably spoke between clenched teeth. Could it be Lady Lilith? “Someone is coming.”

“Fantastic.” Grim condescension in the voice of the Morningstar. “Because one traitor who makes fun of us wasn’t enough…”

As Hastur rounded the corner, he instantly understood three things.

First, it were indeed Lord Lucifer and Lady Lilith who had been shouting at each other. He stood there, legs far apart, and roasted Hastur with his eyes as if he had already expected the Duke, and not looked forward to their meeting; Lilith sat behind him some distance away and stared at the floor.

Second, they were trapped behind what appeared to be a net that emitted soft heavenly light and was also responsible for the whispering. Hastur wondered how Lucifer could stand unprotected and stare at him through the net; the Duke himself had to shade his eyes as the glow from the threads and knots pierced his brain like a white-hot arrow. He stopped at a respectful distance from the glowing barrier.

Third, if those burn marks on Lucifer’s face and across most of his chest were any indication, Hastur was powerless to free them…

“Hastur!” snorted the Lord of Hell, “Allied with the little fly, are you, yes? Do you come to deride us?”

That… was a lot at once. A lot of units of meaning that Hastur first had to process, break down into their implications and put together again to form an overall picture. It was tiring, it took time, and it lead to a lot of puzzling dead ends and what-ifs; it was reminiscent of trying to find one's way in an unknown area with an incomplete map and a malfunctioning compass. So for now the Duke limited himself to shaking his head and otherwise making a show of how little he comprehended of this situation.

“So you are still… faithful to Hell’s purpose?” the Morningstar asked, and now Lilith, the fallen human, raised her head and turned her narrowed eyes toward the demons. Her face was blackened badly… Hastur wondered why.

The Duke nodded, tried to form a smile, but it came out so wrong that it could hardly be called a grimace.

“Is it possible,” whispered Lilith, but Lucifer commanded her to be silent with a sign of his claw.

“You’ll get us out of here, Hastur,” he ordered grimly, “No matter the costs… and if you have to remove this godly stuff here with your own, unprotected fingers. You will not rest until we are liberated… and until this little cockroach writhes in pain at our feet.”

Again, Hastur couldn’t see through half of what was spoken… but he could understand the threat of violence and torture, and he knew he had received an order, a goal, and he liked both. How he was supposed to remove this god-blessed heavenly stuff was still a mystery to him… but well, something would come to his mind. Anything.

“Did. You. Understand?” Lucifer snapped, and Hastur hastily bowed, affirming as heartily as he could. “Begone, then, and do not dare to return before you have found a way. Hurry! You know our thirst for revenge – if you let us wait, do not delude yourself, we will reduce you to dust.”

\-------------------------------------------------------------

Keeping up with each other’s step uncannily easily despite the vast difference in leg length, Gabriel and Beelzebub retreated into the former’s office. The Archangel had had to speak rather brash and some might say brutal words to Sandalphon, who didn’t seem to want or be able to simply put up with his superior’s decision, who had been presumptuous enough to follow them, to implore them to revise their verdict, but both of the managers had remained unmoved. Things could be hard, Gabriel reckoned, and unfair… those who had faithfully surrendered their ability to think for themselves were hit hardest. That was not fair since their sacrifice gave testimony of their utmost dedication, be it to the cause or to their leader, but this was the nature of things.

More individuals than him would have to deal with harsh truths in the upcoming months.

An idea had started to solidify in the Archangel’s head in his endless conferences and disputes with Beelzebub: perhaps it needn’t be lost and given up yet. Perhaps there still was time and opportunity to end this by merely cutting out the middle creatures and turning directly to those involved. The only ones who effectively could demolish this plague-ridden blue orb and everything on it.

Maybe they could yet finish everything down there cleanly – and since no clean slate was provided for the construction of an Elysium for the celestial winners, it seemed he would have to construct it on the rubble of what would remain of Earth once he was done with it.

Everything further will be child’s play, Beelzebub had been convinced. Now, the Archangel did not think much of his-her rotten opinion, but in this one case, it was conceivable that he-she might have a point. Humans certainly were easier to impress, to manipulate and steer than the average angel – or demon – and with a little more strain and effort he might still be able to bring about what he was destined to and therefore earn the salvation and peace and quiet he so much yearned for. And that he deserved, plainly spoken, after so many centuries of unwavering servitude!

How Gabriel had missed enacting heavenly justice, rising up with celestial right over the weak, the unclean, the strays, the rebellious and unteachable… a breath of fresh air in his so long dried up lungs. That the little fly-princess had to be with him in this break-free moment… well, nothing came without its drawbacks, it seemed. He would find ways to deal with him-her.

There was an irritating tickle at his solar plexus – a tickle of something new, of destiny, or of a return to what he had always perceived as right and true.

Beelzebub carelessly made his-her way into Gabriel’s office – he hadn’t expected him-her to be any less conceited and self-centred – and immediately rounded the desk to slump down in his swivel chair. “Fine place you have up here,” he-she commented while Gabriel closed the door, “just some – what’s the name, blinds wouldn’t be out of place. A pity that we won’t be seeing this again any time soon.”

“Quit prancing around the subject,” Gabriel commanded, leaning onto the tabletop and towards Beelzebub, bringing his face all too close to his-hers which didn’t betray a spark of emotion, “and tell me how we should proceed. We have dispelled all unnecessary encumbrance… what’s next?”

“Now, Archangel Gabriel,” Beelzebub explained, leaning back and resting one ankle on the opposite knee, “isn’t it obvious, you ostrich? Next is what I’ve always said.”

Silence.

Gabriel’s teeth clenched.

Abruptly the Lord of Hell sat on the edge of the chair, upright once again, and approached Gabriel, greed in his-her eyes and grasping hands – the Archangel pulled back swiftly so the distance between their faces remained constant. He could not prevent him-her, however, from clasping his lower jaw in his-her hand, pressing four fingers into his cheek and the thumb into the opposite mouth corner.

“We will do,” Beelzebub ended grimly, “whatever we damn well want.”


	11. II/1: Cooperation

Lord Beelzebub had a problem. It was colossal, red-skinned and horned, had mean little pigs’ eyes and was even more ill-tempered, violent and volatile than before since Hell's plan of a bombastic, bloodthirsty apocalypse had so spectacularly failed. Not really towards Beelzebub as a person – zir conduct around and in conversation with the Morningstar was as distanced-professional as ever – but zie couldn’t help but notice.

Well, to be completely honest, Lord Beelzebub had two problems. This second issue was arguably less pertinent than the first, but zie still treated it with wrathful-loving care just as well since zie hated Lilith, the fallen human, the serpent consort to the Morningstar, with burning passion. The pronounced closeness between her and Lucifer didn’t have anything to do with it; Beelzebub mostly just wrinkled zir nose at such. It went without saying that zie also hated Lucifer since each and every creature in Hell invariably hated the superior creature, _had_ to loathe them in fact, because there was no possibility for one power-hungry creature under the thumb of another power-hungry creature but to either break down or wear a double-faced, sly grin to mask that one was constantly making plans on how many, and which instruments one would gladly ram into the soft flesh to both sides of the superior’s spine.

And how vehemently.

And if one should anoint them with toxins…

And if one should use deadly or merely torturous toxins…

Lord Beelzebub, in a gloomy mood, shook zir head as zie stalked up and down in zir office on legs that seemed too thin and too long. Zie watched Gabriel, sitting on the floor, bent over a net of fine yarn; his big, gnarly hands slid over the knots, and his irises radiated heavenly power while he worked his miracles on them. He used the ancient language of angels, Enochian, to make the net an impassable barrier to everything infernal; Beelzebub zieself could not use this language anymore without searing zir tongue and vocal folds.

Sometimes, zie had had the impression that Enochian, as strange as it sounded, had its own will and actively counteracted being used by the Fallen, defending itself by inflicting burns; in contrast to earthly languages, it also resisted being approximated, twisted, parodied or vulgarized. Infernal creatures had tried more than once to force the angelic language into their service by deriving it, mixing it with others, creating close approximations of words with exchanged vowels or consonants, different intonations, play on syntax and metaphors, but this… this _thing_ that should not even possess a consciousness had much more fervently denied them cooperation than many a celestial creature. There had been injuries – rather unpleasant sights which had even made hard-boiled Beelzebub heave, occasionally.

Now that zie pondered it, it was to be called a small miracle that Gabriel was still able to use this language without a spark of an ill feeling.

The Lord smiled curtly, hid away from the Archangel.

Well, turning back to Beelzebub’s problem. Turning back toward zir odium.

The reason behind zir boundless abhorrence of Lilith was her usurpation of Beelzebub’s rank as the second highest being in the infernal hierarchy – with no more than pretty eyes, smooth skin and the first soul that had ever been sold to them. The first human woman’s soul, and Hell owned it once and for all! What an achievement! What an impeccably valuable bargaining chip! One had to give it to the human daughter that she had negotiated well – or that she had made Lucifer so blind with greed for her immaculate soul, maybe purely to steal something away from under the Almighty’s ineffable nose, to have something to rub in Her face later, that he had been hardly able to notice that she was wiping the floor with him.

Wicked, sly, cunning little human.

Still: Beelzebub had worked hard, had degraded and trampled over zieself – and, if it had been needed, many, many others – to get to zir position of power and authority. Zie had been beside Lucifer in the revolution, had, opposing zir vocation, learned to use weapons in order to further the infernal cause and zir own pursuit of rulership. Lucifer had vowed to share the power, had promised zim a part of his throne and finally liberty – and now? Now, a little doll, a runaway, a puny _human_ no less, should be more powerful and command more respect and obedience than zie, the fallen angel? Lilith did not even have Beelzebub’s talent for cruelty, for stirring up catastrophe. In many a way she was shiftier, sneakier, craftier in swaying creatures to her will and weaving desires in a way that they served as trip wires for anyone the seductress had taken interest in, but that was merely a lamentable coward's work. If Beelzebub recalled the harvests zir insects had razed to the ground, the sicknesses they carried and spread all over the globe, and the all-encompassing destruction…

Well, very soon, it wouldn’t matter anymore. With assistance from Gabriel and this net, nobody would hear any news of the Morningstar and his concubine anytime soon.

“When will you be done?” zie asked impatiently.

“I can stop immediately if you have heightened interest in letting them escape,” Gabriel snapped. The look he shot zim from below was full of detestation and half-contained murderous intent.

“Which would make you one angel, all alone, facing the elated Lightbringer,” Beelzebub quipped, leaning back and casting a derisive look down upon the continuously working angel. “Maybe it would be worth it to abolish the plan now just to watch that.”

Gabriel merely moaned, rolling his eyes, and turned back toward the net. “You can consider yourself lucky that your and my purpose are congruent this one time,” he muttered, “if they weren’t I would have done what I should have since you mur… ah, for an impossibly long time: squash you like a gnat.”

Of course, Beelzebub thought, but could keep the smile off zir face at the moment. You just shoot your mouth off, goose… in the end this gnat and its larvae will still feed off your corpse. As for the one I murdered… how delicate that you still toil about this.

But this is a topic for another day, another dispute…

For a moment there was silence, merely underlined by Gabriel’s incessant and monotone Enochian murmur. The demon listened and noticed that the sounds stung in zir ear canal, that Hell’s whole atmosphere, heating up, seemed to battle the angelic language. Zie shouldn’t be surprised.

Then, Gabriel sat back on his heels, wiped his forehead and announced he needed to pause. Some five or six miracles, spread out over the day, probably wouldn’t make him break a sweat… but to bless all the hundreds and hundreds of knots in this net to make them impassable for the likes of zim and indestructible as well certainly ate away at his powers.

“Do you need…” Beelzebub asked, seating zieself, but Gabriel lifted a hostile, stabbing finger.

“Dare to suggest I drink one more drop of your… beverages, and I am out the door and you can try putting your plan into play all by yourself,” he threatened.

Electrically charged glances were exchanged between angel and demon. This was an empty husk of a threat and both participants knew it; one’s plan would not come to fruition without their help in the plan of the other, and nobody had any healthy interest in an unbound Lucifer in full command of his strength crossing their paths. The only practical thing about the whole situation was that the celestial overseer had removed Herself out of the equation all these millennia ago.

“You should be glad either way that I even consider working with you,” the Archangel continued glumly, probably more to defend his own integrity than to wound the Lord, “Since you despise everything the Almighty gave us…”

“And you, peacock, should be happy,” Beelzebub replied coldly, “that I only broadened your mind in the metaphorical sense. I am still not certain if I should not explode your…”

Gabriel gave snorting laughter. “You just try, princess,” he said, relentless.

“With pleazzzzzzzure,” zie muttered, and zir favourite beetle buzzed in irritation.

For a second, the opponents measured each other with abhorrence. Then Gabriel broke the connection, taking a more comfortable sitting position, and grunted, “As if you were in any way, shape or form able to, Beelzebub. _Lord_ Beelzebub, forgive me, I forgot. You were in charge of all this for six thousand years – I will assume that Satan was involved about as much with you as She was with us, up above – and look in what state everything is. Not even on your own body,” he measured zim with distaste from head to toe, “you can keep order and clarity.”

Beelzebub supported zir elbows on zir knees and leant forward. The expression with which zie fixed the silvery Archangel was piercing. “What do I care for your celestial rules and regulations?” zie hissed, “For your need to control everything? What do I care for human binaries and your cherished order? Your precious order has, just in case it escaped you, locked me into this humid prison down here. What do I care how others describe or label me as long as they still cower? I am Lord Beelzebub – this is all that matters. I am transgression personified. Which damned words and thoughts you use to indicate me – do you think I have no bigger concerns?”

“Among which don’t seem to be your inferior’s well-being or technological progress,” the Archangel derided.

Beelzebub lifted a brow. “At least in the first one I reckon we are not that different, peacock,” zie muttered, kicking back again, “and as far as the second one is concerned, we have spent considerable time under your thumb, _Archangel_.”

“Golden times, _Lord_.”

“Which you have actively renounced and closed by this.”

Silence encompassed the managers. The infernal air gradually recovered from the Enochian sounds, cooling down and reverting to smell of the usual hellish mould and decay, not so much dry smoke. The pounding in Beelzebub’s ear canal slowly subsided, and zie felt zir breath flowed easier now that the Archangel was silent or used English for conversation.

Enochian was no good for normal conversation either way. It was just for invocations.

“Just to tell you up front that our… cooperation… will not earn you any special treatment as soon as this is finally over,” Gabriel said, which made Beelzebub smile wanly, “that, given time and opportunity, I would not…”

“… crush me like a beetle, I know,” zie interrupted, sounding almost amused, “well, as I already zzaid, you are more than welcome to try. With your new old order or without that. Contrary to those who you’ve zzubdued with your liezz up there, I am not afraid of you. I am indeed looking forward to being finally able to face you when every last card is played.”

Gabriel said nothing. Beelzebub could only make assumptions as to what was going on behind his forehead – in a sober state, he was less willing, less eager, to admit how much he had enjoyed leading everyone up there astray, masked by the pretension of his intact connection to the Almighty. There was something dark in him, the Lord of Hell had found out with considerable delight, and it would be zir task and zis alone to beckon it forth. Maybe it would finally vanquish the ennui in which zie existed since their most efficient opposition to Heaven had been smothered by lack of resources.

“You will lose,” he warned zim, staring forbiddingly at zim, and this time it was Beelzebub’s turn to leave a statement uncommented with no more than a haughty smile.

If you are all that convinced, peacock…

What irritated zim, however, was that Gabriel showed no sign of a fall from grace. His angelic powers were still at his disposition, and the infernal atmosphere still seemed to bother him. Now, Beelzebub wasn’t a hundred per cent certain how the process of ‘falling’ mostly unravelled; zieself had, apart from the fact of zir alliance with Lucifer, almost urged zir own Fall to happen - everything, everything that was cut out to separate zim from anyone trying to boss zim around. Zie had eagerly welcomed the flames that had burnt everything celestial out of zim, and had zieself modelled fragile, translucent insect wings out of zir angel wings. The pain had almost been unendurable, but the task achieved had also filled zim with wild, maybe unnatural pride. 

On the other hand, zie had been told that the Fall had just happened to a handful of other angels, like a sneeze could happen to them or a stumble, and this made zie puzzle over what really went into who had fallen and who remained – if there even was any truth to it. Zie thought zie knew that most of the Fallen, if not all, were fighters of the Glorious Revolution, and zie knew for a fact that of those, no-one would have stayed a heartbeat longer in this oppressive environment either way, in this environment where they were destined to never make an independent decision. Much good it had done them indeed…

Still, the question remained: if one did not actively want to split from Heaven – how, then, did the Fall simply ‘happen’ to one? Very mysterious…

In the end, Beelzebub thought while Gabriel took a deep breath, cracked his knuckles and went back to his work on the net, in the end, he most probably is right and it is impossible for him to fall because he would hardly rebel against his own rules. He would always be on the side of right, since right was what he said it was…

The Enochian murmur resumed. Gabriel’s eyes went aglow, and Beelzebub leant back as far as zie could, seeking distance. These sounds were to zir ears like blinding light to a person who had spent five hundred years in the pitch dark… and yet it also spoke of coming victory, and Beelzebub hardly managed to contain zir impatience.


	12. II/2: Check-Ups

A dirty planet.

A repulsive and foul planet full of creatures that were blindly bustling around…

They should consider themselves lucky that someone came to bring them order and light.

The light coat swished behind him as he strode through the streets, hands hidden firmly in its pockets, dissuading every living thing that crossed his path by cold electrically charged glances from the idea of getting closer than strictly necessary. Their unsettled, disapproving, undecided looks slid off him like water from a fish. His gaze, his attention shifted with utter concentration from one creature to another; drilled into their heads and hearts, illuminated and assessed them. The result was sobering; no one was pure, clean, virtuous enough to be worthy of Archangel Gabriel’s attention, or even seemed to show any interest in it. Vermin, all of them, in his eyes… vermin that chased their tiny little needs and didn’t care about the bigger picture.

It should have been over, now Gabriel saw it more clearly than ever. It should have ended, if not before this thrice-damned Jesus character had turned their whole concept inside out with his ‘charity’ and ‘forgiveness’ and 'clemency' and thereby had stopped their mills for years, for adaptation to the new requirements, then at least, at the latest at the moment Hell had last been on the move, as it had been their turn for an envoy to Earth. It should all have ended with this curly-haired, insubordinate little snot nose.

But then – if you didn’t take everything into your own hands…

Archangel Gabriel did not have the exact plan fully figured out yet, but he was convinced that it would all come together, in time, and with the Creator’s help. The most important thing for this very moment was that he had gotten rid of the ballast, was now free to bring justice about in every way, shape and form he deemed necessary, and just.

It had been in everyone’s best interest… quite apart from the fact that it had been his task, his burden. Someone had to make sure that Her will, Her word prevailed… and how else could he have cemented his authority? He knew better than them. He knew better than anyone.

But in the end, enough was enough. He couldn’t work with someone who didn’t deliver on Her promises, and this planet truly deserved to be blown to pieces and scattered in all the winds so paradise could finally emerge, as Gabriel visualized it and as it always should have existed. If She didn’t want to give to him what he rightly had earned with millennia of steadfast servitude and government in Her sense, then he would have to construct it himself. It would be hard work, but when had his existence been anything other than nerve-wracking and exhausting labour?

Half-and-half, after he and Beelzebub had made their pact, he had feared that She would be roused out of Her endless sleep, Her emotionless contemplation of this place and Her creations’ various destinies, and She would strike him down where he stood – after all, if Gabriel believed in one thing, it was divine vengeance and divine fury. But nothing of the sort had happened; he was still upright, still radiant, still white-silvery and six-winged, still in the Mistress’ grace. Enochian was still slumbering in the back of his head and flowing easily over his tongue.

For a few moments he had doubted – had genuinely been worried.

A repulsive feeling.

In his mind’s eye he saw the city he was roaming already cleaned and illuminated – shimmering white, if not translucent, glass and silvery metal instead of this dull stone, and the creatures that were there would be more beautiful in body and pure in spirit, much purer in spirit, more perfect, more graceful, more agile, better dressed. They had everything at their disposal – all these wonderful fabrics and patterns, and what did they do? They ran around in ill-fitting, washed-out T-shirts with abstruse prints, scratchy, hard, sometimes torn or frayed jeans and shoes that defied description.

Especially the shoes. Something about those in particular had to change urgently…

It would be silent and warm and cosy. No ugliness, no suffering, no hatred would be tolerated. Finally things would come to rest, there would be no noise and deviations, no uprisings, no opposition, peace and order would abound under heavenly rule.

However, that was a dream of the future. First of all, Gabriel had to assert himself – then he could start thinking about how he planned to transform and improve this place.

And where better to start his plan than in one of the houses that was supposed to be sacred to him?

\-----------------------------------------------------

Hell was empty – finally. The beetles and mosquitoes following zim around buzzed in disturbance – the animals too were not comfortable with how deadly quiet it was. It was almost a little scary to walk through Hell and the silence in which it lay now, but Lord Beelzebub was only tangentially aware of this. Zie followed a noise – the last noise that was still audible.

The nagging, threatening, raging and swearing of the dethroned.

To be truthful, zie hadn’t expected the trap to spring so quickly – zie had, in fact, only returned to Hell after the meeting to clear out zir office and carry along into zir new existence merely whatever still had any meaning or value. It had seemed a pity to never be able to take in with zir own two eyes what zir (and Gabriel's, very well) hands and mind had wrought, but well, zie would know anyway whether it had worked out. Then, however, zie had heard the whispering, and the accompanying yelling, and the thought of meeting the prisoners in their predicament had been too sweet to just pass up, and so, the Lord had made zir way down into the Pit. Didn't zie deserve some gloating, after all zie'd been through?

All the way, sarcastic thoughts had coursed through zir head. Alas, things like these were bound to happen if one got used to staying in one’s chamber in the Pit, never letting oneself be seen, never caring for anything and only using every living thing down here as one’s personal lackey… such a shame that zie couldn’t have been there in the very moment they noticed that they would not be able to cut that however flimsy-appearing barrier.

The stream of threats and cuss words that reached Beelzebub’s ears got more all-encompassing and overwhelming as zie progressed. The buzzing and whirring around zir ears which zie had to hear at all times to feel reasonably safe was soon drowned out by it – but well, zie still had the feeling of the thousands of little, knubby legs on zir skin, under zir hair.

The screaming and fuss died down as the sound of Beelzebub’s steps had been discovered – not that zie had tried to hide. Where would be the fun it that? They should be very well aware that someone came to laugh at their distorted grimaces.

At first Beelzebub couldn’t discern anything in the dark behind zir trap but a fourfold, weak sparkle…

Then the net suddenly was aglow in a light that stung everyone’s eyes, and for a brief moment all three creatures in this vault had to stumble back, either lower their heads or narrow their eyes or shield them with their hands. The insects circled around Beelzebub, reminiscent of a cloud of dust, but zie was also the quickest to recover.

There was a laugh in zir throat – but no sign of it around zir mouth.

The Enochian murmuring, emitted by the blessed cords and knots, was more excited and intense for a few moments, but over time it condensed again to a distant, incomprehensible crackle, still there and still irritating to the ears of the infernal creatures, but not painful. Beelzebub could imagine all too well how they must feel, locked up behind this deceptively fragile barrier and constantly bathed in the Enochian whispering… It was bound to be terrible. How uplifting to imagine that your own conquered suffered such a punishment.

“I should have never trusted you, you oversized blowfly,” Lucifer hissed out of his containment. The glow of the net which had caught his infernal miracle and neutralized it with a flash of blinding, celestial light bathed his coarse face and his broad-shouldered body in sickly, whitish-silvery light and let Beelzebub see all too clearly the burn wounds and scars he carried, all of different gravity and freshness. Beelzebub imagined he must have ran into the net in pursuit of his underlings who shamelessly no longer responded to his calls and commands. Or had he done it in order to breach the barrier? Whichever it was, Beelzebub rejoiced at the sight of these sores – zie had not even been able to touch the net without burning zir skin, Gabriel’s invocations had been this powerful. It had only been possible for zim to prepare the trap here due to the silvery Archangel’s help, again, a pair of earplugs, a pair of thick, sturdy gloves and utter care to not brush it with zir naked skin.

“You should never have assumed you had me firmly under your thumb,” Lord Beelzebub replied, cool and collected on the outside, full of malicious glee on the inside.

“I command you to release us,” Lilith hissed. She, sitting at the side and speaking above hands, knotted in utter rage, appeared to be more dangerously injured even than her consort: her whole face was charred, charcoal black from the tip of the nose to her ears, from the temples to the chin, and a disgusting smell of scorched horn and skin emanated from her. Could it be that this vapid little bint had tried to wind through the loops in her serpent form?

A spiteful grin tugged at Beelzebub’s mouth, and the buzz of zir beetles resounded in zir ears – the sweetest song of triumph there was. “I dare you to do anything to me should I disobey,” zie mocked, “This net imbibed Archangel Gabriel’s magic – and if the peacock did his job right, it will not subside for quite some time. Which means nothing infernal can cross this barrier, or even touch it. Not your bodies. Not even your miracles. This world will be turning without you for some time now.”

Satan lifted a claw, threatening. “If I ever get my hands on your traitorous little head, you leech… to think I considered you family once.”

“Gabriel! You threw your lot in with that… that… monster?” Lilith cried in disbelief. Her searing anger at the mention of Gabriel’s name made Beelzebub lift a brow. Peculiar. Was this to mean that there was something shared in the head Archangel’s and the infernal monarchess’ past?*

“One thing after the other,” Beelzebub slowed this down, lifting a hand calmingly, “Lilith – Mistress – I indeed have made an alliance with Gabriel. If you want to call it that. For as long as it, and he, remains useful. The rest doesn’t concern you.

Lucifer – Morningstar – my Master… yes, _if_ you ever get me in your hands. However, if I were you, I wouldn’t have any hope of getting out of this hole within the next, oh, four, five centuries. You should be proud of me, the both of you… how often does it happen that the pupil overpowers the master? And the time of our familial bondzz is over… over for so long, Morningzztar.”

With this, Beelzebub turned on zir heels and marched away, ignoring the yells in zir ears, the orders to turn around, and another flash of light that indicated someone had cast another miracle into the net. Ah, the smell of desperation on a dreary afternoon…

Perhaps, zie thought in mild alarm after the flash, zie should talk about this another time with Gabriel. Might the net’s power and resilience diminish faster if they kept attacking it with their miracles? True, Lilith’s magical power had always been negligible – her body, destined to merely be human, didn’t allow for more, or so it seemed, and this was not, had never been what made Lilith perilous – but Lucifer’s hellish miracles were a force to be reckoned with. Even more since he, one of the Seraphim from creation, was theoretically more powerful than Gabriel the Cherub…

Maybe Beelzebub should contemplate sending the peacock back to Heaven to fetch Holy Water. Zie wouldn’t need much… ankle high would suffice. Without feet, standing was such an arduous task. And then, Michael had carried an adequate amount in a simple glass jug, so this wasn’t an unreasonable request by any means.

The thought of Archangel Michael made Beelzebub tremble. Where Gabriel was an uptight theoretician with a much too high opinion of himself and his work, bit off more than he could chew, but was kind of amusing if one had a way of handling him and the rages into which he was prone to flying if one pushed the right buttons, and Uriel and Sandalphon mere laughing stock, handymen, probably unable to produce a straight train of thought without their superiors, Michael was someone not only Beelzebub, but all of Hell had learned to fear. Michael wasn't prone to violence, but if she did use it, she did it with awe-inspiring precision and determination. She brimmed with power and resoluteness and never faltered to use her abilities if she deemed it necessary, and she didn’t seem to nurture anything but contempt for zim and zir cronies. She had demonstrated this, too, more than once.

What might have happened to her after the liquidation of their companies? Was she still a matter to be reckoned with, or had she turned tail to make her own fortune?

Did they... have to do something to account for her?

Whatever… Beelzebub would address zieself to that problem if ever zie encountered it. Back to topic: what should happen to the dethroned infernal royalty?

Murdering Lucifer and Lilith right now would be the cleanest and most effective way out, but it would deprive Beelzebub of the malevolent and enjoyable knowledge that they sweltered in a narrow, moist corridor in vacant Hell, that they screamed their little souls and throats out and would never even have a chance of receiving help; that they, ignoring the scorching of their flesh, would throw themselves against the net time after time in the misguided hope that they could tear it apart.

That they would lose a little piece of their mind any day they were locked in down there with nothing but each other’s cursed visages…

This thought alone was too delicate to finish it immediately.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Dear Reader: If you share Lord Beelzebub's confusion in this matter and it means something to you, may I kindly point you to 'Before Temptation', a story of mine in which the last two chapters are largely concerned with Lady Lilith breaking free from Eden and the angels and demons she meets in the course thereof. Shameless plugging off.


	13. II/3: Among the People

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear reader,  
> I wish to warn you that the following, oh, at least two chapters will be rife with blasphemy. Tread lightly. I hope I will not offend you, and still wish you lots of fun and (maybe) the occasional shudder when reading this.  
> Have a nice day.

Father Francis had, over time and experience, gotten used to preaching to and celebrating service with a congregation that was getting smaller, stranger and, above all, older. He only occasionally saw children and young people in the rows, and if so, they almost certainly hadn’t come voluntarily. He was not happy about that, and it made him question his diocese’s future, but he had accepted his circumstances, thanked the Lord for what was left, and shouldered this responsibility. He himself was no boy of twenty years anymore, and who knew, maybe the one who would follow in his footsteps would find an answer to the current developments. He certainly had no idea what young people needed these days to awaken their interest and dedication.

Perhaps one could attempt winning one of these wonderful, dedicated priests from a developing country for this post. Father Francis would love to work with someone like that, and he had heard that such experiments had borne marvellous fruit, for everyone involved. Or wouldn’t it be wonderful if a female priest would follow him?

The air in his church was clear, crisp and cool, yet dusty, as he stood in front of the shrinking community that Sunday and asked them to pray with arms raised. It was a clear, cloudless, freezing cold winter day – the low temperatures added to the emptiness of the church, because in such weather those whose belief was less firm and paramount in their lives preferred to stay home; understandable, also because heating this huge and badly isolated space was a nightmare one way or another, on a purely pragmatic, but also financial level. Additionally, this building was old enough that even the idea of trying to open the walls to put in a central heating system would probably make every single official from the preservation of historic monuments fly into red-hot rage.

Those present bowed their heads and might have folded their hands, and while Father Francis led the prayer – an activity so programmed that he did not have to pay attention to what he was doing or saying anymore – he listened to the echo that reverberated from the people.

It wasn’t all that bad for the handful of people who were here. Maybe not everything was lost.

Something warm and clear seemed to hit him from behind; nothing physical, something like a gust of wind, but less dynamic, and it didn’t seem to flow past or dissipate like gusts of wind usually did. Father Francis raised an eyebrow, trying not to interrupt himself or stumble in his diction. Would he have to call a plumber? Did the radiator back in the vestry have a problem?

The money that would cost…

Every now and then he peered up from his own hands clasped in prayer to let his gaze wander over the rows; in addition to the hair and hats on the bowed heads, he sometimes saw displeased or bored grimaces or the chins and necks of those who had fallen asleep. Very rare, but still. This time, however, the sight that presented itself to the priest was a trifle different. In addition to the usual and unremarkable attitudes and expressions, he also saw a woman – middle-aged, still huddled in her coat and wearing rather shrill glasses – staring in his general direction, but just a hint above his head, with something like disbelief or fear.

How peculiar. Might she be daydreaming in an alarming manner?

Well, be that as it may; Father Francis returned to the words of devotion. The warm air didn’t stop flowing around him, and he was beginning to worry. What if it was a gas leak? He didn’t smell anything, but then, you could never be too sure. There were several burning tea lights on the offertory box. And when he thought ahead to the next baptisms and confirmations, all the candles…

The woman bumped her neighbour with an elbow. He was an old man who appeared in a suit for every service and used an orthopaedic cane because of a stiff leg. He shot her an angry look before he followed her gestures – what he saw made him take a deep breath and then press a gnarled, stained hand over his mouth and nose.

Father Francis felt his voice get thin, noticed how he grew insecure. How long would he be able to ignore these… signs, for want of a better word, keep his composure and concentration and continue leading the prayer in calm? What, all you saints and angels, was going on here?

The priest’s uncanny insecurities and stumbling in his words now attracted the attention of the rest of the congregation – from the honest, long-time believers to the children who were dragged along by their relatives – so they looked up to check, and by the looks of them, many a heart skipped a beat and many a breath halted in their lungs at whatever they were seeing right behind their priest’s back. Most of them just stared, immobile and pale, with eyes wide open and lips drifting apart; some turned to one another and began to whisper, have hasty discussions under their breaths; some put both hands over their mouths; others slid from the rows of benches to the ground, incessantly crossing themselves, incessantly murmuring prayers.

None of this was caused by a gas leak, certainly not.

Reluctantly and pausing in his prayer, Francis turned around – and stumbled backwards, could just barely avoid losing his balance and falling.

This church was a bright, airy room, friendly with the sunrays filtering through regular as well as stained glass windows – but the sun’s radiance was a stale, half-light nothing compared to the almost agonizingly piercing rays that emanated from this apparition. In those moments the priest felt as if he had never really seen any light, and his deepest desire was to cast down his eyes.

A figure hovered in front of the altar – indeed, he hovered there, without contact with the floor or the altar itself. This figure, humanoid, tall, angular and broad-shouldered, dressed in a grey-silvery shimmering suit and coat with a subtle light-blue tie, was surrounded by a shimmer which seemed to form three pairs of voluminous wings behind his back. His facial features, sharp and with a heavy jaw, were shaped into a condescending half-smile. His eyes were purple, but there was nothing subtle about them; their expression was penetrating and scrutinizing, that of a strict teacher who had departed the class for half an hour but now returned to take over from his intimidated, intrepid prefect and check the progress of everyone present.

Was it a macabre joke, or was he just hallucinating?

Was it a dream?

Father Francis wanted to say something, ask something, but all he could do was gurgle feebly.

“Such welcome you are able to give,” said the apparition in a voice that was all too ordinary and bitterly witty. “One should think someone like you, Father Francis Worley, would recognize a celestial official when he sees him.”

Another gargle was all the priest could produce. He felt he was obliged to kneel, but somehow the idea did not snap into the relevant bones and joints. He just stood there in front of his congregation which was no doubt just as shocked and stunned as himself, and stared, stared blankly and stared as if petrified. His mouth was dry and he knew he should not fear – God the Almighty had found it in His grace to reveal Himself to the least of His servants and send him a celestial envoy. To what purpose? Francis had no doubt he would be told shortly… and here he stood, numb and limp and weak, and did not even find it in himself to show the due respect and veneration.

 _Was_ there a gas leak after all? Was the church set to explode and take all present with it to the hereafter, and they were deemed worthy enough to be collected by one of His own angels?

“I will leave your emotional reactions to you this time,” the angel continued, alarmingly lightly, “because I am no longer here on behalf of the Lord. But know that you face the Archangel Gabriel.”

Father Francis bit his lip. He wanted to believe it, he really did – and the outer appearance seemed to support the stranger’s claims, but how could such a holy creature, such an exalted form of life as the Archangel Gabriel speak such profane words?

And how dare he assume criticizing the Archangel Gabriel was his place?

The angel looked around – his gaze swept over people present, over the interior of the church and finally back to the priest. “Stand or sit as you please. I, frankly, do not care. So you’re still venerating that betrayer?” he asked, his voice a friendly yet drilling lull.

Francis swallowed, his fingers tightening and relaxing again. “Be… Betrayer?” he asked hesitantly.

The angel gestured along the walls of the church which were decorated with depictions of the stations of the Way of the Cross, and finally behind him, where a larger-than-life painting of the Saviour on the Cross was emblazoned. “ _This_ betrayer,” he specified. Contempt and displeasure dripped from his words.

Francis shivered. These were the revered servants of the God to whom he had dedicated his life?

Fortunately, someone from the community came to his aid. “Jesus gave his life to wash us clean from sin!” cried a woman’s voice that Father Francis identified as that of Irene Ailes, a widow and mother of three children who had, themselves, largely turned away from faith. Francis was very fond of Irene; she was a very severe and determined personality, very factual, although sometimes a little narrow-minded and stubborn. Francis could only assume that one simply had to develop such characteristics by way of coping with the obligation to raise three youngsters to be tolerable and sociable people.

“And what good is that if you all reload yourself with sin at every opportunity?” the angel shot back with a sarcastically raised eyebrow. His finely polished shoes now noiselessly touched down on the church floor; the priest found himself expecting an earthquake, a crack in the ground, or any other sign that Earth and the sacred presence of that creature didn’t mix, but nothing of the sort happened. The indifferent Earth carried the angel just as it carried any other living thing.

“It gives us a chance,” Irene pointed out in a grumble.

“On the contrary, it takes away your chance to defend yourself.” The angel now spread his arms, encompassing all, and Father Francis felt how it touched his heart. Not only deference touched his heart, but also disbelief – as much as he hated to admit it – and fear.

No, it couldn’t be an error, this angel was real, very real; but why did he speak such words? Francis had expected, should he ever face an angel, that he would speak in incomprehensible puzzles, in old, hardly known languages, maybe even in tongues completely unknown to humankind and science, but that he would so blatantly express such blasphemies? That he would shake the foundation of the very faith that should give him life and purpose? How could he say one derogatory word about the Messiah?

“For if someone slaps you on the cheek, don’t strike back, but hold out the other one!” Archangel Gabriel snorted; bitter amusement mixed with condescending contempt. “Forgive your enemies and guilty ones! Oh if you ever knew what you have been up against. It is precisely these false principles that have brought us into this predicament.”

Or – the thoughts in Father Francis’ head chased each other in wild circles – this was not an angel at all, but a demon masquerading as a celestial envoy and trying to mislead all these honest, good, godly people… He would be not the first evil spirit to disguise himself in an angel’s skin, name and voice, and to try to lead innocent people off the right path!

“Salvation, people of Earth, is serious business, and the opposition do not play, either. Do you think they will stop their little temptations if you just ask them nicely? If you invoke _Jesus_ to their faces?” A sardonic grin dug into the impostor’s features. “No, people of Earth, we need to grasp sin and uproot it, completely and utterly, if we wish to have a shimmer of a chance at salvation. No amount of clemency and apathy will earn us this freedom, the final disappearance of everything that is evil; we have to earn it ourselves. If only a little of the old attitude would still be preserved: ‘eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth,’ I am sure you remember that, it would certainly not have been all this easy for the Adversary to lead you to the very brink of the abyss. Lucifer is among you, honoured people!” A sound almost like laughter escaped him. “Lucifer is in the midst of you, and you let yourself be disarmed by a simple carpenter?”

That was enough – Father Francis gathered his courage and stepped forward, hand raised in blessing and turning to God and the angels with a request to give him strength. “I’m not going to be duped by your camouflage, demon,” he grumbled at the apparition, reaching for the Bible resting on the desk a little to the side of the altar, “and in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit and of all saints and angels, I command you to leave your shell – to release this pitiable being you have overpowered – and to leave this sacred place.”

As safe and firm as his voice sounded, Father Francis trembled inside. Exorcisms were a topic that had only been marginally touched upon in his spiritual training, to his own considerable relief. His teachers had addressed the subject in passing, mentioned it existed, then dismissed it like an eerie, oversized insect of an odd colour and demeanour of which they didn’t know if it might be venomous. Francis had been content to see such practices as relics of a bygone, less enlightened and scientific time – but now? Now it needed to happen, and the priest found himself shamefully ill-equipped. He had heard that the exorcism rite, if it was to be effective, had to strictly adhere to an exact wording and ceremony, of which he now had not even an inkling.

Still, he had to react in this situation. All these people who had come to celebrate service with him were now his responsibility, as he was the only ordained priest within a few miles. He had to duel with this hellish creature, ceremony and decorum, yes, his own fear and concerns be damned – at least try to safeguard these people here.


	14. II/4: Ego Te Absolvo

Steeling himself, he took a step towards the demon who just glared at him half self-consciously with an elevated eyebrow and raised the Bible, hoping that the sacred book and the cross, stamped in gold foil on its dust jacket, would cause discomfort to the infernal creature. “Vacate – this hallowed ground,” he uttered between clenched teeth.

Nothing happened. 

“Cute,” the creature commented without great emotion, the iridescent wings nestled around his tall figure, “that a small person like you thinks he can command, or harm, the Archangel Gabriel, especially with the symbols he’s sworn allegiance to long before your first simian ancestor drew breath. Should I read this as a call to action, yes? Are you asking me to prove my identity? To reinforce my claim?”

Silence. Father Francis concentrated on turning his faith into an armament; the congregation appeared paralyzed in fear. Or adoration…

“Fine and good, unbelievers. I will be lenient this time – this one last time, hear and remember – and give away my absolution and cleansing to one of you. Value it; it is a great gift.” With which he turned toward the congregation and approached them, simply shoving the priest out of the way, in the process touching the Bible without so much as flinching. 

“Bring me your sinners,” he commanded the people who took a step back almost as one, “or one of you who feels soiled and craves purging shall approach, and I will purify that person. I will burn sin, and evil, and the desire for both out of the core of that person as one burns down a defiled city, or a patch of dead forest.” He grinned bitterly; Francis didn’t know in nor out. He was reduced to standing and staring and, distantly, hoping. 

“Whoever lowers themselves onto these steps today will rise a new – a better and cleaner person.”

“Do not, good people, listen to the words of this double-dealing fiend…” Francis began, attempting to put his physique between the impostor and his congregation, but this seemed the last straw to the demon's patience. He turned his head, glared at Francis – just this expression made the priest want to crumble to the ground and grab his painfully contorting throat – and gesticulated lethargically with one hand in the priest’s general direction.

The next thing Francis felt was a steam train hitting him full frontal; it was a miracle that there was no squirting blood and no crack of broken – ah, shattered, pulverized bones. All air vacated his lungs, driven out by the pressure, and he staggered backward and fell. With the first breath he was able to take, the priest tried to get up, to continue warning and protecting his congregation to the best of his ability, but he was unable to even produce a croak, let alone move. His neck felt as if clogged by a cork; oxygen could get in and out, but his vocal folds were utterly paralyzed.

“Little priest,” the demon murmured, looking down at him, “I could have foreseen that you wouldn’t be willing to accept this… but you wait. Take in what is to come, experience it with open eyes and attentive mind, watch and learn and understand and change your mind.” With which he turned back toward the congregation; Father Francis saw with wild pride that some of the people had, while Gabriel had been occupied with him, made toward the exit, treading lightly and never turning the impostor their backs. Flee, he thought breathlessly, pressing one hand upon his pounding heart; flee and carry the word out there. Warn everyone. Get the police… even if I would not dare consider whether the police will be any more able to harm this creature than I have been, this creature that has managed to do _this_ to me with no more than a wave of his hand.

“What now?” There was an arrogant, impatient edge to the impostor’s voice. “Is there nobody in this… house of the Lord…” the sarcasm was palpable, “… who is willing to leave sin behind once and for all?”

There was silence for a couple of moments, ghostly silence. Only breathing and rustling of clothes in case someone stirred were audible to the panting priest. That’s it, he thought breathlessly – that’s it, do not grace this with an answer, let him get a bloody nose, let him know that his blasphemous talk will not be tol…

“Take my boy!”

Father Francis closed his eyes in mixed hopelessness and pain.

The one who had spoken was Gemma Herlers – a rather unapproachable person with very clear and unchangeable opinions about life, all those who did not practice it right or tried in any other way to challenge or change what she had known for decades, and, unfortunately, a husband named Merton who encouraged each of these points of view. The couple had one child – Zachary, sixteen if Francis was not mistaken – whom Father Francis only knew because they dragged him along from time to time, forced him to the front after Mass to have a conversation with the priest who should, in their opinion at least, talk Christian reason to him, and complained about him as soon as he had withdrawn, eyes rolling and gait hasty. Father Francis had tried good-naturedly to persuade them to be more patient, open-minded, and accepting with their son who preferred to swim or picnic with his friends, or attend a concert, or do something that teenagers simply liked better than to sit in church. He had tried to convince them not to put pressure on the boy, to let him discover his interest in religion, if it was there at all, naturally.

And even if it wasn’t… after all, you didn’t have to pray and know the Bible back to back to be a good person. Father Francis couldn’t explain to himself how Gemma failed to see this.

Zachary would land them all in hottest water, Merton often said sombrely. It was unbelievable how carelessly Zachary discarded old tradition – how did he presume that his immortal soul could be saved if he didn’t seek forgiveness regularly? And that would have horrible effects on them, because on the one hand it would utterly shatter their peace of mind if they had to know that their own son was on his way into the fires of Hell, and on the other hand it was, after all, their responsibility to bring him up as a good, god-fearing man…

Right now, Father Francis could slap himself for all the loving forbearance and patience he had exercised with this couple, hoping every Sunday that the boy would wrestle himself free or that the parents would finally see some sense and clemency.

Gemma and Merton grabbed their horrified, struggling son by both shoulders – Father Francis mused he would suffocate from the prayers and calls that writhed in his throat, did nobody want to stop these two, to help the boy? – and dragged in front of the stranger who contemplated, judged him like a sculptor assessing a block of granite.

Zachary gently struggled against his parents’ grasp, but wasn’t strong enough to wind out of their grip – nobody seemed willing to intercede, separate them from the teenager or even say a word, and it was moments like these in which Father Francis wondered what kind of world they were living in.

Someone… anyone… help this child.

A smile curled the stranger’s features as Zachary looked up at him, pale and panting, fixed by those unnatural, bizarre purple eyes. His parents let go and backed away – but Zachary, for some ungodly reason, didn’t automatically take the opportunity to jump up and run away. “Zachary,” said the stranger with the business-like professionalism of a cattle salesman checking a particularly healthy and sturdy cow, hands clasped in front of his stomach, “Zachary, is it now. What code should I judge you by, young Zachary?” He chuckled. “Confession is and remains private, so you will understand if the rest of this remains between him and me.”

A twitch went through the teenager’s body; Father Francis was not sure whether it was a muscle reflex or an escape attempt.

The stranger kept his silence now to stare straight into Zachary’s twitching face; the church, however, was flooded with a chorus of disembodied voices whispering, hissing, breathing the Commandments. As far as the priest could see, there was a condescending edge to the intruder's expression, and did he imagine that, or did the teenager really grow increasingly paler as the ‘judgment’ went on, while his jaw went increasingly slack and powerless?

Did everyone flinch under every whispered Commandment as he did? 

And how could his parents just stand by and watch the whole scene with expectant eyes? Just stand there holding hands and pretending no tremendous wrong was happening here?

“Ah, yes.” The intruder sounded skin-crawlingly content as he spoke up, rolling his head to relax the neck. “Sinful just as I expected. But let me promise you, and everybody around, right now: if you stand up then and walk out and get killed by one of these motor carriages that crawl over your streets, you will be the cleanest, the least abhorrent soul that will ever have gotten anywhere near paradise.”

Speaking thus, the impostor leant down a bit and placed his spade-like hands around Zachary’s temples. The boy didn’t seem to be able to move, nevermind his heroic efforts, his nostrils blared with heavy breathing. Francis struggled against his confines, but to no avail.

The boy’s uncontrolled shivering and shaking seemed to get more urgent with every second the angel – or demon – ah, the entity touched him, and also he himself showed signs of strain. A tight-lipped grimace, little puffs of breath, ever so slightly hunched shoulders and back. Sinews that were standing out of the backs of his tensing hands…

The boy’s eyes rolled into the back of his head, and the head lolled back on his neck. His mother finally reacted in some way, giving a small smothered cry, probably now, much too late, finally comprehending to what fate she had consigned her child…

“Ego… te… absolvo!” the entity grunted between grit teeth, and upon the last syllable many things happened at once.

A seismic shock hit the church; the statue of St. John the Baptist tumbled down into the Holy Water basin, diverse candlesticks and other utensils which had been sitting on the altar were knocked over, and the offertory box just toppled. A gust of wind had mercifully extinguished all the candles before – a blazing inferno would have been the last thing they needed now.

Zachary threw his head back as far as was humanly possible, tore open mouth and eyes and was suddenly pulsed through by blinding white light, so hot that the priest could still feel it. The light shone out of each orifice and even glowed through his skin, it was a horror to behold.

Up above, under the church’s roof, a similar event occurred: there was a flash of lightning, a glow, there for a moment, then merely an afterthought like a cloud or puff of smoke.

Archangel Gabriel – or the one who pretended to be him – pushed Zachary away, and the boy landed quaking and grunting on the cold stone floor, down at the lower end of the stairs separating the altar from the benches. His mother did the one right thing while the angel straightened up and adjusted suit and tie: she approached as fast as she could, grasped her son around the shoulders, stabilizing him, and helped him get up.

Zachary gathered his senses about him uncannily fast; he was hardly upon his feet as he already took his mother’s hand and announced, in a lowered voice which was only widely audible due to the acoustics in this building, “It is good, Mom – all is good now. Everything is cold and empty and quiet in me. I do not want anything but to be good and clean. It is a bit… I don’t really know, but it feels as if I had surfaced out of a river of sewage and dirt and mud, and it was suffocating me, but now I am free, it is out of my system, and I can breathe again. I have never felt this serene before. Has the air ever tasted so… so sweet and cold and invigorating?”

Gemma, for the first, remained staring at her son in disbelief for a moment or two – but then she turned toward the Archangel who smiled down upon them reminiscent of a mildly proud grandfather. “This proves it,” she breathed, “We… are facing a messenger from above.”

Father Francis was slowly losing any idea of what to do as one by one his entire community peeled out of the rows and joined the small family in genuflecting to the white-collar phantom and muttering helpless prayers. Had this proven anything? Could it be true?

And how should he then explain away his doubts…?

The apparition now left his elevated position to walk between the people. “Listen,” announced the Archangel Gabriel in a dark, deep, oracular voice, apparently growing a few inches with each word. His arms were stretched out on both sides, his voice was severe and tolerated no contradiction, and oh God, would the light he emitted ever be dimmed? “Listen to me, people of Earth, because I bring you truth: I bring you news of the absence of God.”

A single gasp went from mouth to mouth, from mind to mind.

Zachary knelt among the converts and still shivered all over. He didn’t look like he was feeling the best he ever had – not anymore. I would have to get him privately, Father Francis thought desperately, I know the child, I would have to speak to him so I know if he is still himself. If there is anything of young Zachary left in that husk…

“Know that God turned away from you the moment She created you. Only we, the Archangels, were there to watch over you, and we have noted every good deed and every misconduct. We have protected and punished you, we have encouraged and directed you, we have guided you on the path to fulfilling the Great Plan. Know that there is nobody left to fight for your salvation but – yourselves. You cannot count on angels or Gods or anyone else to keep the demons away.

Know that you are alone – utterly alone – in conflict with Satan and that it is important that you, yourselves, form a barricade against him.” He grinned bearishly. “The Almighty will not help you to wash yourselves of him and to protect you from his shameful plans and machinations; this power – this responsibility lies solely with you. You have to build a pure, brilliant white world that hurts the Adversary when he merely looks at it. You have to gather the good and clean around you and expel the bad and the corrupt – with your own very hands. Or with my help, should you so wish.”

Would anyone contradict him? Stop him? Father Francis doubted it, and that frightened him more than anything.


	15. II/5: Breaking Free

Beelzebub travelled the globe. Zie searched anger; zie searched unrest; zie searched discontent and revolution. Zie searched unquenched greed, regardless of its legitimation or goal. Zie searched hatred, blind rage and the desire to free oneself from chains and prisons, break apart structures and rule systems. Zie searched for those suffocating who threshed and struggled for air and liberty. Zie searched for dirt out of which phoenix-like ascensions could be made.

Zie searched, in short, small embers and the opportunity to form tornadoes of flame from them.

Zie didn’t have to physically appear to humans to make them serve that purpose. Most were convinced by no more than a hissed word, a hardly noticeable touch, a little push, a glance, a hint, the tiniest of indications – a buzz as of electric discharge – a breeze like a brewing hurricane – a whisper like flying sparks.

Never before in zir existence had zie been so influential. Nobody mistakenly imagined they could order zim around. Copious amounts of objects of temptation were easily within arms’ reach – zie just had to grasp them and make them feel, unbridled, and force them to let off all collected steam on their perceived scapegoats. Beelzebub was surrounded by vermin of every kind, and oh yes, zie amused zieself. 

Now let us see what my heavenly peacock will have to say to what I have wrought!

He should just try to impose his cherished order on this…

\--------------------------------------------

Nobody fully knew who the small, black-clad lady was, where she had come from and what she wanted – she with the unmoving, piercing glance and the rash-ridden face under dishevelled, smelly black hair. Most of them didn’t even know whether she strictly was a ‘lady’ and not perhaps a small boy or a rather short and lanky man, maybe suffering from some kind of ailment, but ‘the small lady in black’ was the name they had bestowed upon her, and she did seem to accept it. 

She sat amongst them and watched as they worked, almost day by day. She sat in a corner, her forearms resting on her knees, swarmed by flies, gnats, beetles and other more or less nasty critters, and she never seemed to move an inch.

The people wondered what she might be up to.

It was not simply the buzzing and the deplorable smell that wafted around the lady – much more, the people felt somehow stronger, invigorated, since she graced them with her presence. There was something in her expression, most of them believed, something in the way her lips pursed to a haughty smile or how the tongue checked her lips and chin for crawlies.

The small lady should be utterly repulsive.

Yet she wasn’t.

None of the workers should want her around.

Yet most of them, if not all did.

Tina especially couldn’t avoid casting check-up glances at the lady from time to time. Certainly, strictly speaking, they had no time for anything but their work – there even hardly was time to grab a drink or go to the restroom. Still… occasionally, just now and then, Tina felt she desired to walk over to the lady, sit down and grasp her hand and talk to her. She remembered having, just in passing, overheard Martha and Ernest discussing that at least one of them had seen the lady in their dreams. How was that possible?

It felt a bit as if she were chasing them… hunting them.

But to which end? What was it that she wanted them to understand?

The atmosphere in the station had changed so much… talk had been stirred up, talk of dissatisfaction and unrest, of things that needed to be changed, and fast. Talk of utter disrepect and bitter spite for those in the upper tiers, those who fed like pigs upon them.

Them.

Nevertheless, work progressed at the usual speed and rate. After all, life had to go on, and big uprisings never had worked - not in the long run. They packed, stamped, sorted, threw stuff about more or less carelessly, the trucks came and went under roaring and puffing engines and stinking exhaust fumes, and the small lady in black sat in her corner, on her chair that was broken, missing a leg, and still seemed not to dare wobble or break down beneath her. She sat silently and without stirring, emitted nothing but the dull, repulsive smells and the buzzing, bristling energy that unsettled everyone so much.

They felt they wanted – no, they needed to do something.

Yet nobody knew what nor why.

One time the managers came down from the first floor; came down to check on them, to see what the little ordinary people did and if they weren’t making any grave mistakes. People in pristine suits and heels; people with slender glasses and finely manicured hands, smooth skin and long hair up in tidy buns; people with gel in their hair, rings on their fingers and shimmering tiepins; people with their noses up in the clouds. Tina had never thought like this before, but this time, she could not help but liken these to aliens: creatures that were distantly affiliated with herself, that she had seen and encountered before, but which had not the slightest thing in common with with her.

One of these foreigners – Mr. Vernon, who knew exactly who had the right to be here and who hadn’t – noticed the small lady and stomped over to her, his polished shoes thudding on the floor. Tina watched them from the corner of her eye; among all the noise and bustle she couldn’t make out what this was about, no more than that Mr. Vernon used an enraged, commandeering tone of voice – a tone that made clear he would not take no for an answer.

Tina, alarmedly, looked around. Those who had also noticed the presence of the managers and their unsettling proximity to the small lady seemed to share her tension: they fished for each others' glances, uneasily, antsy, fingers itching and twitching to grab something, do something, they motioned toward the small lady undecidedly.

Something was brewing, Tina could almost smell it. Something billowed and grew and tried to grasp them and pull them in, made it hard for the people around to perceive their own thoughts and feelings. Oppressive and ominous, like a black cloud in the collective consciousness that spread ceaselessly.

There was no reason to fly into a rage.

Yet.

Mr. Vernon lifted his arm, pointing. The gesture was unmistakeable. Leave.

And even if a reason were provided – an incitement – what would they want to do?

They. Plural. Tina couldn’t help herself; her teeth clenched and muscles tensed as if by themselves upon that thought. Plural. Something about this appeared alluring, magical, but also agitating to her, and she couldn’t put her finger on what exactly it was.

The small lady didn’t react. She merely blinked up at him as if he addressed her through a wall, or a pool of water. Mrs. Horner first made the effort to try calming the people down, demonstratively inserted her body between the manager and the workers, who were exchanging uneasy glances, with an expression and mannerisms appealing to everyone's good sense and peacefulness.

The lady’s face was expressionless.

Some of the people left their workplaces, staring at this odd triad, mostly ignoring the other managers. Tina felt a sting in her gut upon closing in on them; it was as if she were born with the knowledge, the impulse that she had to protect the small lady.

Somehow protecting her seemed to be fully congruent with protecting oneself.

Mr. Vernon gesticulated animatedly between the lady and his colleague, reached for his phone.

Tina felt herself drawn toward the lady; from the corner of her eye she noticed that many a colleague joined her in that compulsion, with nervously twitching fingers or shoulders, sneaky as well as openly intimidating, their faces slack and lethargic or full of fervent battle spirit. The buzz and whirr of the automatons, of the station itself, seemed to fade into the background, to grow meaningless. Tina felt dizzy and feeble, but she was also hell-bent on resisting – a feeling that seemed to occupy the deepest pit of her stomach and consciousness. Too long they had let themselves be steered by those... aliens. What happened here was wrong, was atrocious, and how long would they want to keep putting up with that unfairness?

It was about so much more than the small lady. All of them had been enduring too much, for too long.

No-one had the right to set the rules for them.

**No-one.**

They would set, and be their own rules.

Oh, why have rules at all?

Things had to change.

They had to resist, finally.

**Resist.**

Break free, break free, break free from the frameworks, the system, their chains…

Mr. Vernon and Mrs. Horner immersed themselves in an intense argument over the small lady’s head. Tina couldn’t understand a word they said, not because she were too far off or noise would drown it out, but because the words that reached her ear canal as if through a thick, plushy barrier appeared like they were in an alien language. Everything was damp and dull and distant, everything was unreal, but Tina saw one thing absolutely clear now: it was enough. The small lady and her well-being, her right to be here – it was a symbol for all the abuse they had swallowed, it had finally tipped the scales, and all too soon, a tumult would break loose. It was overdue.

Tina didn’t think it would pay to try keeping things calm and ordered here. Not anymore.

You could only play along, and play nice for so long...

She heard the heartbeats, felt the breathing, sensed the racing thoughts of everyone around her, and she instinctively knew that in these moments, they were one, that they shared one thought, one drive, one goal, one aggressively and venomously pounding heart.

Then it happened.

Mr. Vernon abruptly leant down – swooped down like a bird of prey – and cramped his greasy, dirty, violent hand around the fragile ornament at the small lady’s collar, yanked her upright, off her resting place…

And now hell broke loose.

Ere Tina had had a blink of an opportunity to think through what was happening and what she was doing, she had already uttered a war cry and jumped forward, elbowing Mrs. Horner out of the way, grabbing the violator by the shoulders and hauling him back, away, away from their small lady. She hardly noticed how more and more hands and feet came to her aid, punching and clawing and gripping and tearing and kicking. She could hear Mrs. Horner’s imploring voice and Mr. Vernon’s thundering one, his imperious tries to make them back down, but nothing reached her conscious mind.

Mr. Vernon dropped the lady as abruptly as he had grabbed hold of her; she landed uncannily smoothly on her feet and drew back, hands linked behind her back, blemished face further distorted by a cryptic, though malevolent grin. Yet her malevolence seemed to irritate no-one; in these moments she was loved, utterly loved, by every person around, this remarkable, inexplicable creature.

Mr. Vernon's protest and yelling and threatening fell on deaf ears.

Mrs. Horner’s and the other manager’s tries to smooth the waters were for naught.

The people worked in complete silence and unity; their heads felt as if they were filled with buzzing of a whole swarm of insects.

Nobody who tried to release poor Mr. Vernon of his predicament had any chance at all. The employees worked together in quiet, unquestioned understanding, stood like a brick wall, and even if those on the outer circles had to endure punches and kicks, they did not yield.

The small lady…

Tina could not say with full certainty how things had unfolded once they were over and done with. They had been comparable to a swarm of bees or a colony of ants protecting their weakest or most paramount member; everything else had stopped mattering. Everything she knew was that she locked and barricaded the door after they had kicked out the last of the white-collar pests – and that it felt oddly, horribly final. She knew that with the click of the lock, a phase, no, an era had ended, and that nobody present at this moment would ever submit to anyone again. They would live and breathe and scream rebellion and independence.

So now they had occupied this property, stormed it from within and made it their own.

Tina was grimly satisfied… for all these times, they should have done something to assert their rights. This was a welcome development.

There was a dull, dark red thud of pain, covered by layers of adrenaline and destiny, in the area of her mouth, her chest, her left collarbone, but nothing of this seemed in any way pertinent or even real to Tina. Something essential, long overdue, had happened just now, who was she to concentrate on a little discomfort in her bones or flesh?

The small lady in her black attire expected them, downright majestic in countenance and attitude, and a darkly ominous sense of affection, of admiration surged through Tina’s every fibre as she contemplated her, so tiny and frail and yet brimming with power, with energy, with excitement, heat and drive to action. Somehow… unsettling, as if she didn’t belong on the ground she stood on, but at the same time wonderfully physical and concrete and inviting. Her smirk was no more malicious – it had taken on a royal, prideful air, which helped the minds of the workers take on the same sentiment. They had made an achievement today, after all! They had made a mark, had stood up for themselves and one another, had made them hear their voices in a ferocious outcry…

She was so unkempt and shabby, the small lady. Pants torn at the seams, jacket worn-out and thin, shirt old and colourless, jewellery tarnished and cheap, face itself pallid and gaunt… and yet Tina never had felt a power that compared to what surged from this creature.

An impoverished queen, monarch in rags, but nothing could have diminished her power.

Tina broke away from her co-workers to run towards the lady who, gracefully, extended her hands. Tina grasped those hands, small and bony and cold, nails painted black, and caressed their backs with her thumbs. Not even the reek that wafted around the lady, the insects that would not leave her alone, the pus leaking from the boils in her face mattered to Tina, who, by way of holding her hands, felt herself partaking of the lady’s liveliness. Tina felt like she could breathe after years of her windpipe being obstructed, no worries and fears in the back of her head, no thoughts but of the sinisterly pleasant future the lady promised. There was no need for words – no human way to express these moments, these emotions properly.

The lady’s eyes were red hot coals.

“You know,” the small lady finally addressed them in a sneer almost reminiscent of a bird’s cry, “that this was just the beginning, yes? You have seized this place, asserted your claim – now you must keep it. You must have demands and force them through, without yielding, you cannot let yourself be confounded or manipulated or betrayed, by either threats or negotiations. Let their sweet-talking fall on deaf ears. You will have…” a manic spark glistened in her eyes, “… to prove to those up above that you are a force to be reckoned with.”

Tina’s throat was dry and itchy, so she merely nodded. Yes. Yes, yes, everything the lady said… if only she remained to support and protect them, this motley band could withstand anything and anyone.

Those white-collar folks… had had it coming for so long…

“Let them see that you will not be pushed into their frameworks anymore,” the lady continued, growing ever more imperious and high-spirited with any word she uttered, their order, “their system, their… rules do not bind you. Not anymore. You have to be your own law and your own commanders. Nobody – and nothing – can even slow you down if you have, and treasure this!”

No commotion broke loose; there was only silent, icy cold, bitter agreement and the warlike satisfaction in the small lady’s face.


	16. II/6: Close to the Water

“Will you take a look at this, dear boy…”

Crowley vaguely peeked in the direction Aziraphale’s voice indicated, over the rims of his sunglasses, and spied an earthly newspaper in the angel’s hands. Angel and demon sat on a park bench – in the city, but shaded by a tree; well, Aziraphale sat. Crowley was rather hanging there, utterly relaxed, lost in the moment, watching the people bustling by. In all honesty, the demon wasn’t much keen on the calm of the moment being disturbed, by whatever, and would have much liked to keep this conversation sweet and short. Before he could even have discerned one letter, he muttered, “So we’re reading human newspapers now?”

“Indeed. Since the celestial newspaper will not be published anymore, for reasons you are very distinctly aware of, I presume.”

The demon limited his reply to an exasperated grunt (“Ngk”) before he asked, “Fine, I’ll bite. What do the humans write that is so noteworthy?”

“Here.” Aziraphale indicated an article – just a handful of lines, the letters so small that it would hurt less keen eyes to try deciphering them, haphazardly crammed into a small space at the very edge of the paper. “Some bathers claim to have seen some kind of, well, monster where the River Thames flows into the River Medway.”

“That so. Nessie on the road?” Crowley joked. Aziraphale shot him a look probably meaning, ‘yes, very funny, I will politely and graciously also laugh about it given enough time, at least if I do not forget along the way, but for the moment will you please take this situation seriously at all?’

“They talk about photographs and video recordings, as well. Shaky, but still, so I believe we cannot just deem it fantasy and leave it be. A fish tail, but humanlike from hip up… fisheyes… overly long, muscular arms, fingers as long as a child’s forearm, no claws, God be praised… fins everywhere, on its back and arms, along the tail… collar of spikes… flat, noseless face, thick-lipped mouth, fangs…”

The demon gave an impressed whistle. “And there am I, thinking Howard Phillips already went out into the ether…”

Another indignant look of Aziraphale’s let Crowley throw back his head and produce some frustrated, smothered panting. There was he indeed, trying to lighten up a dismal situation, and this was how he was thanked for it.

“Fine, I am serious,” he grumbled, taking on a slightly more upright posture and turning back towards the angel and his newspaper, “I am all… certainly, angel. Sounds like Dagon. What’d she do?”

“Almost ate a canoeist!” Aziraphale sounded more infuriated and outraged than scared. “The boat was reduced to splinters. No, she ‘only’ tore off a leg, he made it back to shore just barely with his life and is recovering in hospital, the doctors say he will most probably not be dying, how good of you to ask! One really has the impression you care for your fellow living beings.”

Crowley could hardly deny the reproach in these words, yet he still wondered why Aziraphale insisted in making this point. Wasn’t him being a fallen angel enough information to be able to conclude that his compassion and caring sufficed for his ultimate surrounding, but not much more? Even more now where everything was supposed to be over and Crowley had nurtured some honest-to-somebody hope to finally get some rest and enjoyment out of his newly won independence.

“Forget about it,” he muttered, shaking his head almost imperceptibly but still decidedly, “even with joint forces we’re not doing anything against Dagon. Not us. She’s much too strong – and a soldier, as far as I know. Apart from that, I must’ve missed the ceremony that made you chief of the global police.”

“I am not talking about the whole globe,” Aziraphale tried to smooth the waters, “just our… where _we_ live. I cannot get out of my own skin, Crowley, I must keep my environment safe and sound!”

“We could try tricking her,” Crowley said, hardly noticing how he was warming up to the idea, how he spoke louder and a little faster, “direct something venomous into the Medway, we’ll be certain to find something… a chemical or sewer or something like that. If we redirect some sewage to flow in there… something soapy or chemical waste… of course we would purify the water after the trick’s been done, sure, sure, make it especially cosy for everything that lives in there.” This last addition was made to assuage Aziraphale, whose horror at the idea of thousandfold maritime death did not suit his features, Crowley had spontaneously decided.

“Or we…” the angel ventured, “…we could put up a warning sign… that prohibits swimming – or, or canoeing – in this time of year. Then nobody will be bathing there any longer, and Dagon has nothing that she can… that she can hunt, I guess. Whatever she might be doing there. I am positive this will drive her away without anyone being harmed…”

He didn’t sound as if he were positive, though.

Crowley smirked while he rose from the bench. “You’re too soft for this world, d’you know that?”

Aziraphale followed Crowley’s sauntering away with eyes the size of glass marbles. “Where… where are you going, Crowley?”

“What d’you think?” The demon cast a smile back over his shoulder. “I’m getting us some wood and paint so we can build a sign. Maybe a chain too, as a shutoff device, what d’you say?”

Aziraphale did not say a thing. He merely jumped up as well and ran until he had reached the demon. Wasn’t it a nice thing to be on the same wavelength?

\------------------------------------------------

Dagon’s heart beat differently since she had transformed – since she had drowned the angel Rahab within the waves of herself. Slower. Heavier.

More meaningful…

And the best thing about it was, she wasn’t obliged anymore to think about what it meant, why it did that, and what she planned to do in the future. Here, in this new water world she had conquered, there was no future, no past, no smothering duties and no wind scratching and scraping on her skin.

She was all there was.

She was the only ruler and the only law.

At first she had been shocked by the state of her new empire – by the sheer amount of things that had disappeared from it in the time she had been caged in Hell. Various species of maritime flora and fauna had vanished or slowly, painfully withered away, were coated in oil, suffocated on plastic, were caught in fine nets as food or just for sport. Corals had wasted away, sea stars and shells found neither space nor food – only the algae proliferated to an unhealthy, never-before-seen degree. Dagon was not prepared to just accept that things had developed this way.

The humans – the guilty party after all – had to pay.

At this very moment, some human voices had lured the demon towards the shore – through the water she could not understand what they said, but they were there, that was all that counted. The water gently embraced and supported Dagon, rolled over her in smooth, small waves. She moved carefully and sparsely beneath the surface, followed on the one hand her hearing and on the other hand the feeling of disturbances in the river. Something close to the shore disturbed the water’s rest, and if Dagon swam there to investigate, she could hardly be mistaken.

A girl sat there in the sand and pebbles of the shore – a child, clad in colourful bathing shorts, the eyes two greyish-green buttons taking up about a fourth of her plump face, the blond hair bound into a ponytail. She moved her mouth – Dagon assumed she was singing – threw stones and splished and splashed around with hands and feet, but Dagon hardly paid any mind.

A thick, muscular tongue appeared between Dagon’s needle-sharp teeth and glided over her lips.

Soon…

Dagon lay utterly still, half buried in the sand, and waited. She had all the time in the world. Once it was time, it would be over before she or the girl had thought much about it.

The girl jumped onto her feet, the little button eyes torn open and the lips parted as if to scream, as her playfully wandering gaze found Dagon, resting there in the sand as if dead – her tiny hand covered her mouth, her tiny fingers pressed into the flesh of her cheek, and even though the girl’s dread was evident, she didn’t run away. She merely stared; stared into Dagon’s lidless fisheyes.

Dagon smirked. She let some tiny bubbles escape her mouth’s corner and disturb the surface.

Just for a start, a little invitation, she stretched out a hand and put it onto the sand some inches away from the little girl’s bare feet, wiggling the knubby, flat fingers as if to give a wave. A perverse little greeting.

Slowly the girl lowered her hand again; her chest was still pumping, her breathing heavy and noisy, but she seemed to slowly get a hold of herself, and childish scientific interest got the better of her fear. She approached, just a tiny little step, instead of retreating and searching safety on shore, and the grin on Dagon’s face broadened.

The child said something; the sounds reached Dagon’s ear, but she didn’t bother deciphering them. Come here, my sweet, she thought. Come here, do you not want to touch me? Do you not want to take a closer look at me?

Come here and give me your terror.

Come here… and sacrifice to me… all your flesh and blood.

Renewed bubbling out of Dagon’s mouth made the girl giggle.

Dagon shifted her hand slightly closer to the girl and – was successful. The child bent forward, finally knelt down and put her little hand in the water to wrap it around one of Dagon’s fingers, pull and press at it curiously and test: is it possible to play with this – or with the entire creature? The pressure she applied was distant and weak, Dagon hardly even felt it. Her thoughts already drifted towards the image of her teeth that would, tenderly and longingly, tear into the child’s torso.

Carefully, gradually, in order to not scare the child away, Dagon pressed herself upwards, never loosening eye contact to her victim. I am your friend, the demon’s broad smile suggested – and the child seemed to go along with it just fine. So Dagon would be her friend – she would accept her graciously, would give her a name, would take whatever she had to give quickly and gratefully and hold her in her arms all the while, in her clammy, cold, wet embrace, and the child’s sacrifice would never be forgotten.

Ningal, Dagon decided. This girl’s name should be Ningal, great lady, mistress of reeds, taken from the Sumerian language in which first canticles had been sung to the demon, and she should swim in the endless ocean with Rahab, the first and most distinguished sacrifice Dagon had made to herself. Rahab would catch her up and keep her safe, would keep her soul pure and weightless, Rahab would make her one with tempest and flood.

Dagon felt a shiver run through her as her back left the water for the thin, cold earthly air. The girl noticed and lifted her hand as if to stroke Dagon’s cheek – yet the demon steadily kept her head just out of Ningal’s reach, never lost her attention and eye contact. Her hypnosis was powerful enough that not even the sight of her fangs could disconcert the wonderful little thing.

Do not fear, sweet Ningal. Rahab awaits you.

I will accept your offering, and I thank you deeply.

Rahab waits to take you in her arms…


	17. II/7: Alliances

Finally, one of Dagon’s long arms enveloped the girl, pulled her close. Ningal smiled softly, faint-heartedly, muttered words that were lost on the demon – quite possibly the texture of the mermaid’s skin felt uncomfortable for the human child who was not used to cold, slick, scaly, but this would soon pass. Soon Ningal would be released, delivered of this world of flesh, extolled by the goddess of rain and water and mire and fertility, of fish and other maritime animals. Dagon shifted her weight onto her tail fin as she straightened up, lifted Ningal who hardly dared move toward the sky, carefully and ceremonially, higher, higher, higher toward the sun and clouds. Time seemed to seep by in slow chunks as she looked up into the motionless child’s green eyes, into her face, shaded against the pale blue sky, adorned with little blonde curls, and as she finally opened her sharp-toothed maw, opened far and wide, to accept her in the end, welcome her body, soul and mind, breath and beating heart, skin and brain and blood…

“Dagon!”

She remembered that voice.

Not that she hadn’t tried with all her power to erase it from her mind.

Dagon’s face contorted in burning hatred and fury, her soothing smile vanishing to be replaced by a threat made facial expression. Her spell over Ningal lifted somewhat, and the girl was able to squirm and grimace, maybe whimper a little.

 _Be still_ , she brashly ordered the child before lowering her again, hiding her behind her sea-serpent body and turned in the caller’s direction to behold – none less than Duke Hastur, clad in his usual, weather-worn beige trench coat, the toad blinking irately under his thin blond mane, panting and the glassy black eyes wide open. He stumbled closer over the pebbles, rocks and flotsam, occasionally almost tripping over his own feet, and had at least one arm stretched for Dagon.

She hissed deep in her throat. She had planned to curse at Hastur, but her new respiratory system was not able to produce human language.

“Dagon, I…” Hastur panted, coming to a halt an arm’s length away from her and, coughing, bending forward, putting his hands onto his knees in an attempt to stabilize himself, “I am here with… with word from the Master… the Master needs our help.”

The Master? Dagon’s narrow nostrils flared. She recognized no Master above herself. And he dared try to bring her back to subservience? _Give me one good reason_ , she thought, hoping that Hastur would wordlessly discern her anger, _to not maul you like little Ningal here._

The girl fidgeted in her grip. Be that as it may, Dagon thought – she had no scruples that kept her from devouring anyone the child called to her aid right along with her. It would not have half the decorum and dignity of what she had initially planned for Ningal, but she also recognized complications when she saw them and was fully able and willing to adapt. The ritual would strengthen her, and strike fear in the hearts of everyone who dared venture anywhere near her domain.

_Get lost, Hastur. Your Master and I parted ways the moment Beelzebub voided our contracts._

Hastur gaped at her – his eyes were lightless wells into which one could tumble and lose oneself if one was less fortified and grounded than Dagon was. “He is captured in the Pit – he and the Mistress!” he spat out, much as if he hadn’t understood Dagon’s words, “We must release them, or else…”

Or else…?

Dagon waited intently for ‘or else’. Her gills flapped, and her mermaid’s tail impatiently plunged down upon the water. She sensed she should return below the surface soon – the rudimentary lungs she had kept for exactly these purposes were already protesting the unreasonable strain. What could Hastur, wretched lapdog to a bigger power, he who was seemingly unable to find a direction and life of his own, have to say that would make her even consider questioning her choices?

Not even Beelzebub could ever make her reconsider…

Sweet little Ningal, still hidden behind Dagon, started to twist and turn. She whimpered under the force of her grip. Dagon tightened it, half-half considering crushing her and being content with the corpse as her sacrifice, but she didn’t go through with it. Yet. She had not yet given up on the possibility that she would manage to send, or drive, this fool away or kill him and then turn back to the ritual in peace and quiet.

“We must set them free,” Hastur reiterated feebly.

Dagon hissed.

“We cannot simply surrender our victory to that… that poultry up there!”

The girl gave a thin and frail cry that nevertheless painfully resounded in Dagon’s skull. Since she had adapted to underwater life, most shrill and piercing sonic waves were torture to her undeveloped eardrums.

 _What you don’t seem to understand_ , Dagon thought in turning away while somebody shouted in the distance – adults, by the sound of their voices – _is that there is no victory to be had anymore. Our war has been fought, or rather, it was cancelled, and the two parties are null and void now. There is no Master anymore to whom we owe souls, or subservience, or work, or just the white of our eyes – there is nothing but our own, selfish desires and our lust and power to fulfil them. Whoever have mercy on you if you try to stop me from fulfilling mine._

Two figures appeared in the distance, up on the embankment, a man and a woman – their horror was more audible in their screaming voices than visible in their laughably rudimentary-seeming faces. Hastur noticed them as well, but he reacted faster than the mergoddess: upon a lazy gesture of the Duke’s, two monstrous worms rose from the sandy ground and wound around the human’s legs, fixing them in place, pressing and biting. The human’s screams took on a quality of the terrified, shrill, almost panicked, pain-ridden.

“I don’t feel exactly keen on forcing you, Dagon…”

That was enough.

Throwing the girl’s body aside with a hiss, Dagon charged for Hastur, arms outstretched to seize him, teeth bared to tear him limb from limb. He would see what it meant to assume he could control her!

With the force of a raging dragon, Dagon’s physique collided with Hastur’s; he had lifted both hands and cramped his fingers around her wrists, infuriatingly strong for such a pushover, keeping her at arm’s length with vexing effectiveness so she could bite at him and force him backward step by step but had no chance to close her jaws around his neck or chest, as she had planned. Dagon thought distantly that she had never tasted her peer’s blood… there was a first time for everything.

 _He will not be able to wrestle me away for much longer_ , she told herself. _His puny little powers won’t make him outlast me whose occupation it’s been to fight_ , and once his strength had left him, she would show Hastur what a real demon should be like – completely without any orders from any Master.

Hastur scrambled back into usage of his tongue - his words were smothered and strained as she spoke, “Dagon, what… what do you think you’re doing, you jerk? We are on…”

This was the moment the arrows started to rain down. The first shots were just warnings, both demons could tell, they whirred by all too closely, just so scratching their skins or clothes, but they brimmed with celestial power and made the water boil upon hitting the surface, and the heated water hurt Dagon’s scales. Hissing and spitting she whirled around, casting Hastur aside with all might, which led to the Duke losing control of whatever nibbled on the adults. The worms drew back into the soil; the humans fell down at first, but then were able to fight themselves upright, their legs wobbly and bleeding all over, and run, however limping, to Ningal who crawled through the sand, direction- and helpless like a crippled, dazed little crab. 

An angel whom Dagon could perceive as little more than a white wisp through the air joined them hastily, but that one the demon didn’t care much about. Much more pertinent were the two who hovered overhead with relaxed, lazy wing beats, hiding their holy light by staying close to the sun. Dagon could only vaguely discern them – her new eyes were hardly useable outside of the water – but she could see very well that the two chickens still had their bows at the ready and arrows pointed at her, and that she was hardly able to counteract this tactic.

Panting and puffing, but aware of the fact that it was her best possible course of action, she let herself sink into the waves. _One day, one or any number of you will wander too close to the water_ , she thought while the soothing wet element enveloped her – _then I will be around, and I promise, if I can seize any of you, that one will never see daylight again_.

The angels, one wearing a male, one a female meatsuit, intended to address themselves to Hastur upon Dagon’s retreat – but no trace of the Duke remained. Shaking their heads, but still prepared and perceptive, the arrows back in the quiver and the bows at their sides, they joined their colleague who had taken the mortals under her wings, started whispered conversations with them. As a first action the doctor had probably worked mild anaesthetic miracles on the humans so they looked mildly irritated and astounded, but allowed the angel to treat their wounds without any resistance and answered to her friendly questions with sluggish, monotonous voices.

“There you have it.” Crowley’s voice sounded unstable as he spoke thus, but his friend knew doubtlessly that he worked hard on presenting the same unmoved façade as ever, no matter how much he was unsettled below and behind it. Aziraphale had made him drop the materials the very moment he had sensed that they were not alone, and hid both of them behind some undergrowth to watch the scene unfold; even now that the danger had passed the angel’s heart didn’t cease to pound. Now that the victorious angels tended to the injured and frightened family, that they healed their wounds and assuaged their doubtlessly racing thoughts, Aziraphale thought he should slowly get a hold of himself, but some nagging voice in the back of his head told him that this was merely the beginning.

Crowley still held the wooden hammer they had brought to drive the warning sign into the ground – held it as if he were ready to weaponize it if needed. The angel wondered whether his friend even noticed.

“There you have it,” he reiterated, gesticulating towards the angels and the family with the hammer. “There you have these workaholics who still occupy with the humans.”

Silence set in. Aziraphale had no idea what to say. He just watched and was unsure whether she should be relieved and glad or, conversely, alarmed and scared.

“Who are these three, by the way?” Crowley tried to break his carousel of thoughts, and Aziraphale wetted his lips with his tongue before he explained, indicating each angel in turn, “I… I know Zeruch and Kezef, at least have seen them before, they are… soldiers. But this thin, pale lady over there, I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure of meeting her before.”

“Oh. Yeah, sure, soldiers. D’you think we should turn tail? I mean, before they see us…”

Seemingly he had been a tad too loud, and the female archer angel’s head turned, inquisitively, towards them.

Crowley ducked as if in reflex, holding in his breath. Aziraphale pressed his lips together, readying himself to say something, anything, though he couldn’t tell by the life of his…

But Zeruch did no more than curl her lips into a wan smile and give them a small nod before she turned back to the situation at hand.

So there was no danger to be expected from the angels… well, these angels at least. Still, this was merely a beginning. Aziraphale had seen nothing yet, the knowledge sat itching and biting in the back of his head. He knew it without being able to say how he were to interpret it, what to do, and this made him utterly restless.


	18. II/8: Boasting

The new office wasn’t like the one he had had in Heaven – not even close. But it would have to do. Archangel Gabriel hadn’t made this descent to hang around in an office, either – there was serious, back-breaking work to do, also in order to prepare for the princess’ moves.

 _Sariel_ , it shot through his mind unprompted, and he pulled a sour face, leaning back as far as he could and toying with his pen. His lips were dry as dust. _Sariel_. He should have consigned her to the past, to nothingness ages ago; nothing much was left of her. And yet he was unable to. Her name, the memory, the atrocious, misleading emotions, all of this was much too persistent in the back of his head.

At least his performance in the church – or, more like, his ability to burn holes in a human being’s fabric where the sins had sat – had found him the one or the other devotee. He got more demands for a cleansing than he could handle in the time and with the energy at his disposal, apart from the fact that he thought he had made it abundantly clear that Zachary would be the only one who would receive his absolution free of charge; everybody else would need to earn their entrance to paradise, the paradise he intended to transform this rotten lump of dirt into, like every other creature that graced it momentarily.

Gabriel hoped that he would rather soon gain access to somebody who held some authority around here… for the moment he would need to limit himself to the bishop who made this building and grounds accessible and usable for him after he heard of the Archangel’s miracle work. Word of it travelled to Vatican City, however, and as much as he loathed it, Gabriel had to wait for their answer.

From now, people had assured him, the news would travel by itself, first through niche mediums and after that also through…

“I already told you he is not available right now!”

The voice of the little, scrawny and jumpy priest the bishop had made Gabriel’s assistant sounded through the door. A bespectacled specimen whose eyes had on a permanent deer-in-the-headlights-look, but halfway appropriate for service to an Archangel. He was low down on the church hierarchy, at least the Archangel assumed so without really knowing a lot about ecclesiastical hierarchies and not tremendously caring. Be that as it may, he sounded agitated and overwhelmed, and whereas Gabriel was not surprised at this turn of events, it had transpired faster than he had hoped it would. 

For a short while he contemplated coming to the human’s aid; but then he smacked his lips, leant back and closed his eyes. Ah no, he would be able to handle himself and whatever was up out there… he was an adult human, after all. Not that this meant very much to him personally, but the mortals seemed to think an enormous lot of this.

A couple precious moments of silence followed.

“Do you not speak our language, or do you simply not want to listen? For all the saints’ and angels’ sake! Leave now! Will I have to call security, Mister… Miss… oh, whatever?”

This, however, caught the Archangel’s weary, annoyed attention and made him prick up his ears.

Footsteps – and, “… lable if I say so. He will be available for me.”

 _Beelzebub._ Whoever else? This egotistical little…

Still, he could not fight the urge to have him-her be ushered in, even if it was merely about intimidation and show of his progress, his hand that seemed quite favourable for the moment. About spreading his achievements before him-her in haughty satisfaction. Maybe he-she could also spin a yarn about the enraged but helpless expressions of the duped Morningstar and his concubine, now safely stored away behind the net which had been one of his proudest achievements…

The door flew open; Beelzebub towered in the frame, facing half Gabriel and half his inept serf.

That very same serf had his arms stretched out as if to grab him-her and throw him-her out violently but seemed loth to touch him-her for real. Gabriel could hardly hold it against him.

The Archangel rose dignifiedly to shoot both intruders a majestic-calming glance; the serf froze in place. Beelzebub however did not even break his-her stride; he-she entered without a second’s hesitation, occupied one of his guest chairs and linked his-her fingers upon his-her abdomen. His-her expression was ardent; _you don’t even manage to keep this better farm animal under your control_ , it seemed to say. _Hang your head in shame…_

“This will be all,” the Archangel turned toward the priest who, in answer, lowered his head and timidly glanced at Gabriel from below, “Leave us now. And keep in mind that you can always let her in… or him. Whatever. We are… something akin to family.”

However distant…

Gabriel sank down into his chair again as the priest closed the door and tried to not let Beelzebub see his guardedness and mistrust all too overtly. The Archangel rested his elbows on the tabletop and his chin on his folded hands while the demon Lord looked around, having settled in after the fashion of the demons, broad-legged, shameless and completely oblivious. “What do I owe the honour of your visit to, _Lord_ Beelzebub?” he asked warily.

Beelzebub snorted pompously. “Greetingzz to you, too. Is this what you call hospitality? Don’t you want to offer me something to drink, poultry? And then, zzomething akin to family, I may thrizze be damned. I mean I already knew you featherbrains are allergic to the truth…”

“Keep your tongue in check, princess,” Gabriel grunted, “you are about the last one I trust to speak about the truth. You should not even be able to think of it!”

“Zzame to you,” Beelzebub countered – only thing missing for a shark grin on his-her face would have been revolver dentition.

Gabriel sighed, briefly hid his eyes behind his hand, pulled himself together – laboriously – and finally turned back to his guest, wearing an obviously artificial smile. “What do you want?” he clarified the question he had posed earlier on.

Beelzebub shrugged. “I wanted to see how you’ve been faring since we liquidated our companies,” he-she claimed.

“You wanted to boast, _Lord_.”

“That, too.”

“So shoot. I am all ears, as they say down here.”

But Beelzebub didn’t start recounting; there was a faint twitch around his-her mouth corners, and his-her favourite, giant, fat, blue-green shimmering beetle emerged from under his-her collar to crawl along his-her narrow shoulder. “You don’t stand a chanzze against me,” he-she announced proudly, “the humanzz trust me blindly. What’s more, they want to trust me. They want me to get them out of their bonds; they have no interest anymore in rules and strict order. One just has to give them a gentle shove, and they do exactly what I want them to.”

Gabriel smirked. “We will see about that,” he replied, no less self-confident and convinced of his rightness than his opponent, “I work with the authorities – the powerful hundred of this society. Those who tell them with whom you work what to do. Who is it after all that you brought under your control? The dregs. A couple of unwashed, unruly children. I am building something tremendous here.”

“Yes, here.” As Beelzebub looked around this time, his-her expression was clearly demeaning. “I could have bet that you would start with something like this, peacock. It almost is as if there was nothing to you save religion.”

The beetle staggered down his-her uniform jacket, now and then reflecting a sunray. Gabriel was uncannily fascinated by the animal, could hardly stop himself from staring at it – might that be strategy?

Something quite like anger tried to bubble up within the Archangel, but he laboriously kept his calm. This is exactly what Mr.-Ms. Blowfly here wants; do not grant him-her the satisfaction. Grumbling and pulling a grim face, Gabriel leant back on his chair and elegantly crossed his legs, lifting his chin so he could look down on Beelzebub more markedly. “This here is a starting point,” he informed his opponent, “a… treading stone, or however they say on this planet. One day, not all too far off, I will have authorities under my control, everyone who has something to say – who can give commands and owns things down here. And what to Hell is the problem with starting at a place that is at least partway familiar?”

Beelzebub didn’t answer; he-she merely chewed at his-her lower lip and met his-her angelic opponent’s authoritative glance with playful disdain. The challenge was evident, and in some way, Gabriel felt intrigued to pit his strength against his-hers right now, without any human operatives in the background. Not even that much for the possible outcome…

Sometimes he wondered what would happen to him-her as soon as he finally would have vanquished him-her. Would he-she finally see the light again, see reason, mores and a better attitude? Could he-she be noble again, honourable and clean? Could it be like it had been before…

Gabriel, clenching his fists and feeling strain in his temples and cheeks, sensed where this train of thought was about to take him and stopped himself before that goal took shape in front of his inner eye.

“You will lose,” he guaranteed his interlocutor.

He-she merely chuckled, lifting a hand so the beetle that had finally reached it could not tumble off. “I detezzt to repeat myself,” he-she changed the topic with a grin, “but is any chance lost of a drink for your guest? You as a compassionate being will not allow that I, since I am almost akin to family, sit here thirsty all the way.”

Gabriel ground his teeth a bit – but finally he reached for the telephone and sent his serf out to bring wine. Any sort of wine.

It appeared this would be a long night.


	19. III/1: A New Beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize this chapter comes a week early - still, I want to use this occasion to wish everyone reading this (and everyone beyond that, of course, too) happy holidays and a good start into 2021.  
> Also, this was written far far before Covid 19. Can you tell?
> 
> Also also, beware of two truly saccharine-sweet chapters. Diabetics might want to have their insulin shots ready.  
> They are also party inspired by the Hurts songs 'Wings' and 'Magnificent'.  
> That's all.
> 
> Take care.  
> V

This was a special evening.

It was cold – an icy wind blew around the ornaments and dome on the roof and towers of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. In front of it stretched an extensive meadow, the one or the other tree here and there, but the meadow was now grey-brown and dry – it hadn’t snowed yet this winter – and the trees only stretched their dry, gnarled skeletons up to the sky. The firmament was starry (perhaps a certain angel's expectation had something to do with that), the air chilly and clear, the moon bathed everything in whitish light. Aziraphale stuck his nose into the wind that ruffled his blond hair, deeply inhaled the clear night air that was saturated with the auras of the people far below him, with their conversations which only reached him as a unity, a block of noises he could hardly even try plucking apart, with the drinks they had brought, with the herbs they smoked, and finally with their fears and expectations.

It was a special evening – not only for all of them, but also for the angel.

He had settled on the cathedral's southwest tower and dangled his legs over the edge, enjoying the way gravity clung to them and pulled towards the ground. It was so utterly real. So _tangible_. Nobody could take this away from him.

The Principality felt the weird urge to let the wind rustle through his feathers – but he told himself it would be too risky. What if anyone noticed and a ruckus was caused? No, he wanted a peaceful evening. A serene and crystal-clear evening where he could with a wan smile watch the visible puffs of his exhalation slowly drift toward the velvet-black sky, without any worries or ulterior motives. He would have to do without his wings.

People were everywhere below his feet, as far as the eye could reach, head to head, shoulder to shoulder, they covered every surface up to the bank of the River Thames; they stood there in pairs or small groups, talking, laughing, photographing themselves or the surroundings with their new-fangled, leaf-thin telephones, holding plastic cups and glass bottles in their trembling or thickly gloved hands. Nobody seemed to be alone today, and for one day, one time, there were no squabbles and no reservations. Every person present, almost as one mind, looked forward to midnight. The London Eye glistened in the distance; every window in the city seemed to be illuminated. Who could think of sleep on such an evening? _If only it could be like that more often_ , the angel thought almost wistfully.

And himself? Oh, if Aziraphale pondered how many changes he had lived down… things had happened – some of them good, some less. He still used earthly newspapers to follow the twists and turns of the world’s fate, and it was still difficult for him if he read of an atrocity or some other problem to take a deep breath, then a step back and to tell himself: _it is no longer my job. Whatever happens to them now is humanity’s own work and therefore their responsibility – their job to straighten out – they are free from heavenly and hellish influences, and presumably, yes, it is for their own good._

At first he hadn’t wanted to believe or accept it. There had always been events that he himself had wanted to try his hand on fixing – but in the end he had always left it because, for all his stubbornness and all the pits that he liked to fall into, Crowley most probably was very correct about one thing: they had done enough. They deserved some rest.

Humanity wasn’t dependent on them – hadn’t been for centuries.

As far as the Almighty was concerned, he was still unsure whether to fully put any stock in Gabriel and Beelzebub’s assertion that She was just an impassive observer in the evolution of the world who really didn’t care for any part of what She Herself had created. Sometimes Her influence appeared so strong that the angel thought he could hear Her voice – not in a way that he could put in words, however. But well, it was quite possible he merely imagined it, and communing wordlessly with an outcast angel from time to time could hardly be interpreted as ‘influencing the course of the world’.

Most important, however, was… it was Aziraphale’s first year released of his celestial bounds. He had had half a year, and needed every minute of it, to fully wrap his head around this new situation, to think it through, to draw conclusions and find peace with it, but it was over; he understood that now. Nothing he did or didn’t do would affect his resumé in any office badly. Nothing he did or didn’t do could be against any rules other than the ones he set for himself. Nothing that he did or didn’t do could earn him as much as disapproving looks, detrimental memos, any demotions or reprimands. warnings and punishments, let alone further attempts at execution. He had nothing and nobody left to answer to – except himself and his own standards.

The Almighty, yes – but he would settle these things privately with Her.

And maybe Crowley…

It was ticking closer and closer to midnight. If he didn’t show up soon, he would miss everything.

Laughter was carried up to Aziraphale’s ears and he smiled cursorily into the crowd.

The end of a year had always made him pensive. He had turned the past back and forth (and someone like Aziraphale had a lot of past to turn back and forth), glanced anxiously into the future, and wondered what the days would bring. But not this year, he had sworn to himself. He would celebrate this year’s end, this New Year, and he would celebrate it with…

“Nice view.”

Crowley’s voice beside and behind him made the angel turn halfway, smiling. Finally he had arrived. Aziraphale had already worried that his friend might have been offended that this time it was he who had received the cryptic invitation message. “Hello. So glad to see you made it,” he greeted his friend and pointed invitingly to the tartan blanket that he had spread out next to where he had sat.

Crowley, standing between two ornaments like a rock musician flanked by slender, butterfly-like ballet dancers, wrinkled his nose indignantly as his eyes followed his friend’s gesture. His leather jacket fluttered in the wind, but both his feeling of cold and his hairstyle appeared untouched. “What’s… that?” he asked gruffly, stepping on the blanket as if he had to check it for quicksand.

“A blanket.” Aziraphale’s smile widened as he stated the obvious. “I brought it along for you, you see, so you wouldn’t have to sit on consecrated ground…”

“Oh angel,” Crowley sighed and rolled his eyes, pushing the blanket aside with one toe, “we’re a couple hundred feet above consecrated ground. I’m perfectly okay outside on the façade. Besides…” he made to sit down on the unprotected, cold stone, “… besides, before I park it on a blessed tartan blanket I’d let my… my behind much rather be roasted off, thank you very much.” The admonitory look that Aziraphale shot him was deliberately ignored.

As Crowley settled in and made himself comfortable, something strange happened.

The demon did not estimate the distance between himself and Aziraphale, who had turned his head away and stared out over the River Thames into the night sky, quite right. So, as he bent his right knee to push the foot beneath the opposite thigh, it came to rest slightly above Aziraphale’s, on his thigh. Crowley immediately took note of this and attempted to retract it, mumbling an excuse that was certainly half-hearted and definitely only half-honest, but the angel was faster. Deliberately and almost as if he hardly noticed at all, he reached out and strategically placed his wrist on Crowley’s knee so that the palm of his hand dangled down, utterly relaxed, in front of it. It was a gesture that was noncommittal, amicable, loving, and possessive to the right degree – and yet so uncharacteristic of the angel that Crowley held his breath sharply for a moment.

Aziraphale had suspected it. He gave the demon a quick smile before turning back to the stars.

The turret clock below them announced with a loud bang that it would be midnight in fifteen minutes.

Crowley soon loosened up again – at least if Aziraphale correctly interpreted the dry sigh and recline that were the demon’s next actions – and that was good. As long as he could reasonably assume that they were on the same wavelength, that he hadn’t overstepped his friend’s boundaries…

“I brought champagne,” he said, pointing to the picnic basket on his opposite side, “so we can, you know, celebrate in style. We should celebrate, I think, I really do. In that weather it doesn’t even need any ice to stay cool, so that’s also good. Two glasses. A little light pastry in case we get peckish.”

Crowley just grunted. Aziraphale nervously gave him a sidelong glance. Should it have been too much – might Crowley be overburdened with all this?

“Crowley, is everything in or…”

A grin tugged at the demon’s lips. “Listen to yourself talking.”

A few minutes passed in complete silence; angel and demon leaned against the cold stone next to each other, letting the conversations and other city noises (wind rustling, car engines, horns, various forms of loud music, dogs barking, croaking of nocturnal crows, footsteps) wash over themselves. The angel’s hand still rested on the demon’s knee, undisturbed, disregarded – it began to feel normal and natural. Aziraphale followed the steady turning of the London Eye; he was one hundred per cent certain that his friend scoured the sky for constellations. He had a weak spot for constellations. In his own way, Crowley was much more tightly connected to his angelic legacy than he…

Ten minutes to midnight.

“What do you think next year will bring?” Aziraphale asked brooding.

Crowley shrugged. His voice was low and absentmindedly monotonous as he gave his thoughts; his eyes were still focused on the black veil of the nocturnal sky. “Hard to tell I guess. We’ll have to wait and see what effects the last decisions will have… apart from that, I very much doubt that they will reissue the 1937 Bentley or that classical music will make its big roaring comeback with the kiddies.”

“Maybe your Violet Overground will reappear in the end,” Aziraphale murmured, causing Crowley to roll his eyes with a groan. 

“Even if that had been the real band name, Aziraphale, even if: there’s no hope of that without Lou Reed. None at all. At least I hope so… if I think about what happened while he was still alive but no longer in the band…” The demon shivered theatrically.

“Lou Reed.” Thoughtful, but also with a smile. “Was that one of yours or one of ours?”

“What do you think, angel?”

No answer was needed. As so often.

Again it was silent for a few seconds.

Seven minutes to midnight.

“But I can see one thing very clearly in our future.” Crowley straightened up a little so he could look Aziraphale in the eye but didn’t necessarily have to remove the knee from his leg.

The angel glanced at him questioningly from the corner of his eye. “Is that so? Well, colour me curious.”

“Yes. Yes it is and yes I do. You will finally accompany me on a trip around the world.”

Five minutes to midnight.

Crowley’s trips around the globe were exactly what they sounded like. Once every ten or twenty years, though irregularly, and of course not in case he slept for an entire century or maybe longer, and sometimes completely out of schedule if something particularly ground-breaking had happened, Crowley packed up an assortment of different passports, bills and coins in various currencies and made off to round the globe to, as he put it, ‘look how things are going’. He was more often than not abroad for a couple of years and took a few more years to get back in touch with his friend. After all, even a demon had to at least have a tentative grip on the world’s state at the moment; Aziraphale had the unspoken suspicion that he did not necessarily keep his devilries to a minimum, either, on these trips, but well, who could deny him that? It had been his job after all. He merely occasionally wondered who was taking care of the greenhouse Crowley kept in his apartment; then he mused that he probably did it himself, occasionally zapping back and forth through telephone lines between any non-descript hotel room around the globe and his apartment as if it was nothing out of the ordinary at all.

His route for these trips had been set for the last decades: he would set off for Iceland from the British Isles, then cross Scandinavia, pull an extremely shaky diagonal across Europe and transfer through the Strait of Gibraltar to Africa. He would circumnavigate Africa, eventually cross the Arabian Peninsula towards Asia, through which he would zigzag at momentary liking. In Japan, he would board a plane to Australia, take that in, then eventually sail to Cape Horn and roam the Americas from south to north before returning to homely London. 

Since the advent of public aviation, which meant less stress, less travel time and, above all, less use of miracle energy, he had been nagging Aziraphale to accompany him; at least once. Up to this point the angel had always refused, citing as reasons his bookstore, his obligations, and oh, what would Gabriel say if he ever found out… but now…

“It’s going to be fantastic. It’s always been amazing! And you finally get out of your stuffy reading room! Don’t you dare refuse, angel!”

Aziraphale closed his eyes briefly and lowered his chin to his chest; something tickled his midriff and throat, he thought it was good-natured laughter, half overjoyed and half soothing. Crowley would never stop doing that indeed, and what harm could it do? In the end, as Aziraphale knew himself, he would give in with feigned reluctance, because you could not all that easily let a demon have his way. Not as an angel. “You know what, Crowley,” he said gently, putting on a slightly grandfatherly smile while he patted the demon knee soothingly, “it is quite possible that I will.”

“Don’t you give me ‘possible that I will…’” And stop treating me like your grandchild!


	20. III/2: Surprise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear reader,  
> I want to take this opportunity to warn you of the less than chronological sequence of events this story is told in.  
> That's all.
> 
> Happy holidays, and I hope you have fun with the chapter/ story.  
> Take care  
> V

Aziraphale was about to open his mouth to explain himself as a murmur ran through the crowd; apparently the last minute before midnight had started. “Quick, Crowley!” the angel breathed, straightening up at lightning speed and reaching for the champagne bottle that he forced upon the surprised demon, “Do me the honour, will you, dear? And hurry up, otherwise we can’t have the cork cracked in time. I will be holding the glasses in the meantime.”

At first the demon looked a bit confused – but as the people among them began, as if in one single voice, to scream numbers (“TEN! NINE! EIGHT!”), it clicked in his mind and Crowley quickly tore the glossy paper off the bottle neck. Aziraphale’s face glowed, the smile on it was so wide it hurt his cheeks; he could see that Crowley was still fighting his own brand of grin, but sooner or later, not even he could help grinning at this remarkable occasion.

Just a few more shakes to the bottle, and then…

“THREE!

TWO!”

Corks popped; champagne foamed; the first firework rockets rose and tinted the velvet-black night sky in various hues, outshining the moon and stars.

“HAPPY NEW YEAR!”

Aziraphale watched the fireworks with big, enthusiastic eyes; it was almost as if his heart were somersaulting in his chest. How delightful it all was! How magical! Not quite like a good wine; more reminiscent of a big glass of too-expensive champagne, fizzing and bubbling and foaming over the rim of the glass. The brightness in the dark, the cheer that sloshed up to him from down there, the exuberant confidence and determination that this year, yes, this year everything would be better, _they_ would be better, they would do everything better… and Crowley was here and shared it with him. 

In those moments, the angel Aziraphale was an amorphous ball of happiness and optimism, and he wanted to embrace the whole world. But he only had Crowley, and Crowley was brilliant, and so he couldn’t help for everything in the world but let the wings break out of his back and embrace the demon with at least one of them.

Crowley seemed to try to say something, judging by the movements of his lips and the way he gulped repeatedly, but he stayed silent and finally averted his glance, instead concentrating on pouring the sparkling wine and toasting the angel under the protection of his feathers. He drank with his face turned toward the ground; was Aziraphale insane, or were there two stealthy little tears peeking out from under the rims of his sunglasses?

It was probably only the wind that bit his eyeballs.

Now don’t question this. Don’t relativize, don’t think, don’t search for a reason or a rhyme. Just be there, be present, warm and tangible and inviting. Be heartfelt. The rest would fall into place, in time.

Explosions of fire crackers and the spray of the sparks raining down rang out in the distance, colourful in the sky and reflected blurrily on the River Thames, and the people below chattered and laughed. Crowley and Aziraphale, hidden from their eyes and minds, shared champagne and silence; no more and no less was necessary. The icy, dry and sharp wind cooled Aziraphale’s face and dried Crowley’s, and neither of them had to sense how agitated the other one was.

The fireworks ended and the crowd under their feet thinned. It was hard to believe that after such an event one could simply go back to one’s normal life, even though Aziraphale knew they all did – that he would do it too.

Whatever qualified as 'normal' to him, at least.

The glasses of the two supernaturals were filled a second time. They didn’t speak.

The conversations became sparse, quieter, and finally ebbed away. The square in front of St. Paul’s Cathedral lost more and more occupants and finally emptied.

The glasses were filled a third and a third-and-a-halfth time; for a fourth fill-up they hadn’t brought enough wine. The two supernaturals still kept their silence. Their harmony was perfect; words would have had nothing to add to these moments.

The angel pulled his wings back to his shoulders, but the feeling remained.

Finally, after they had surely spent two or three hours in complete silence over a London that was slowly rocked to sleep, Crowley rose and wiped his pants unnecessarily. “Come on,” he asked his friend with a nod, his voice hoarse, “I’m driving you home.”

Aziraphale concurred, repacking the picnic basket and taking a leisurely pace; magical was not a descriptor that did his momentary state of mind any justice. He was walking as if on clouds as he and Crowley left the tower side by side. He attributed the soft, warm, furry feeling in his stomach area to the whole situation and his friend as well as the tingling alcohol.

The Bentley was parked at a reasonable distance from the cathedral, the street around it deserted. If the angel correctly interpreted the traffic signs, this was a no-parking zone, but apparently the city’s law enforcement officers were also excused for tonight – or busy otherwise. Crowley’s hand slid affectionately over the hood as he circled the car. Aziraphale patiently waited for him to unlock and finally dropped onto the passenger seat; the roaring engine could not break the rich, loving silence that prevailed between angel and demon, the newly won peace.

Crowley drove unusually slowly, almost law-abiding, even though there were hardly a handful of other cars on the road. Aziraphale wondered distantly why that might be.

They were almost back in Soho, within walking distance of the bookstore, as a flash of light out of nowhere filled the carriage, blinded and shocked Crowley, causing him to jerk the steering wheel around with a pained wince; only a hasty miracle by Aziraphale, whose eyes and composure seemed remarkably less disturbed by the light, prevented Crowley’s most valuable possession from crashing sideways into a street lamp, a house wall, or even a few passers-by.

This, however, shattered the peace lastingly.

The demon just barely brought his car to a halt, half on the street and half on the sidewalk, his forehead between his clenched hands on the steering wheel. Aziraphale leaned over to him, worried, examining, but he couldn’t get around to asking if Crowley was all right. “What… in all…” the demon gasped.

“Kindly forgive us,” a vaguely feminine voice rang from the background – both angel and demon in the front seats flinched. Aziraphale felt that he should be terrified or at least wary, but for some reason this sensible and understandable reaction was not what he felt at the moment. Oddly he was feeling a sense of duty – a cold surge of bitter enforced respect and grudging admiration. “We had no intention of endangering anyone.”

“I think we must be quite out of practice.”

In unison, Aziraphale and Crowley raised their heads to look in the rear-view mirror – the electric shock the angel felt upon recognizing the two faces in it was hard to bear and even harder to describe.

In the Bentley's backseat were seated, prim and proper, the honoured, most holy Archangels Michael and Uriel.

\-------------------------------------------------------

Uriel paused in her flight between the stars as she sensed Michael slowing down and finally stopping altogether – hovering in place and staring into undefined space as if hypnotized. “Michael!” she exclaimed; her voice filled the soothing vacuum, so abruptly and unnaturally that she flinched herself, “Dearest – is something wrong? Are you…?”

“Look,” the pale Archangel breathed, pointing into the distance.

As Uriel followed the gesture, she could discern their starting point in the distance as a vague, bluish-white glint, gliding along in complete calm. So we’ve flown in a circle, she thought without noticeable emotion. How interesting.

“It’s still spinning,” the Throne smiled.

“I wonder…” Michael mumbled and abruptly broke off. Her voice, her developing and changing intentions felt like a gesture: like a hand about to reach for something, or someone, that decided halfway that it was not worth it, that it made no sense, and retreated upon itself. It was as if she couldn’t fully admit her train of thought to herself – uncharacteristic for someone who put as much emphasis on her rational thoughts as Michael did.

Uriel understood, however – understood more out of her own instinct than out of Michael’s words or actions.

“Would you like to go back?” she asked sweetly.

This question provoked an instinctive barrage of rejection, refusal, steadfast denial – they had just broken loose of it, they could not already feel the desire to return to their obligations… but of course exactly that was the case. Even a distinguished, powerful existence like Archangel Michael could not reject herself as completely as she had hoped and had to still attach some importance to what she had always seen as essential. What with the imminent importance that he had always assigned to upholding responsibilities and doing whatever was necessary…

But to give up their newfound freedom and independence – floating through time and space without obligations, without rules, without right or wrong? It seemed unnecessarily harsh.

“I do not know,” Michael murmured, clearly shaken. “Perhaps.”

For some immeasurable moments, it was silent.

“Then let’s go,” Uriel finally suggested.

“You would come with me?” Surprise issued from the Seraph.

“Certainly. Did I not swear to always stand by you, back when you…”

“It may not be as easy as it appears now,” the General interrupted. Of course; she didn’t want to be reminded of the time of her uncertainty, the time of her weakness. “Maybe it even will be impossible. Our bodies may have decomposed by now… I do not know if they can survive without the soul core.”

“Then we’ll stay in Heaven for the time being,” reassured Uriel, “from there, we can check whether we are needed. If we are not – well, we can always turn our backs and leave again. If we are needed, however – well, I agree, then we have to think about something.”

“We cannot even know if Heaven still exists…”

“Not as such - as an institution, possibly, no. I am convinced though that the physical place, the sphere, may be in quite some disrepair, but still in existence.”

 _You are right_ , Michael’s spirit let Uriel know without a word. _Of course you are right… then follow me, my heart, and we will go back to our ancestral home. I am unspeakably happy to have you by my side_. The warmth and appreciation Uriel received with these words was like a cosy, homely blanket that covered her from her neck to the soles of her feet.

Therewith, the two disembodied angels set course for their former home – Earth or rather the intangible supernatural sphere around it. Planets, stars, comets and other celestial bodies, not to mention the infinite fields of space debris, satellites and space stations zoomed past them without them taking notice. They penetrated the atmosphere and the ozone layer without leaving any damage and took a deep breath of the familiar, polluted air. A few glances over Earth’s crust gave them direction – everything looked fine from up here – and they flew toward what they had come to know as the British Isles.

They found Heaven without difficulty – including their bodies in Michael’s old office, leaning upright and well-mannered against the back wall, appearing like women lost in dreams or contemplation. Surprisingly their meatsuits were completely intact: no holes or signs of decomposition, no mess, not even dirt or dust on their surfaces. Even their hands rested neatly on their thighs without twisted fingers; Michael’s hair was nicely combed and groomed, the gold on Uriel’s face completely untouched.

“We have not left them here,” Michael murmured in Uriel’s mind; she agreed without a word, but they took possession of their property anyway.

Slipping into the old meatsuits after this long period of weightlessness and lack of restriction did not merely feel odd and unfamiliar; the feeling of their astral limbs again being surrounded by muscles, tendons, skin and clothing was downright perverse and repulsive. It was as if they were blind and deaf, but gradually gaining these modes of perceptions, and squeezing through a narrow, damp, dull tunnel that tried to crush them on all sides, or as if they dug into lumpy, sticky sand with bare hands. Uriel quivered as she felt her mind take root in the nerves, bones, tendons and especially the brain; even this, feeling itself, was different. The vibrations she received from Michael next to her were dull and far away, as if a barrier had fallen between them, something that severely and irreversibly cut them off from each other. And what was this constant… pulling, or grinding, or pushing in her upper body?

It took a few moments for Uriel to understand that this was the flow of her breath.

It would take time until she got used to this mode of existence again.

Uriel sat up, folded her legs under her body and rubbed the back of her head. Finally, she stared at her hands, moved her fingers one by one, clenched her fists and relaxed them again. Hadn’t she once been agile, dextrous and elegant, even with this ungodly ballast around her soul core? Her movements were so sluggish and awkward in the flesh, everything was so dull and unclear…


	21. III/3: Back in Heaven

“Can you stand up?”

As Uriel turned her head in the direction of the voice, she saw that Michael was already on her feet – standing wide-legged and supporting herself with one hand on the wall, but upright, limbs ordered, trying to find her balance. The other hand was stretched out to assist her deputy, and her eyes were glassy and diffuse; apparently it also took some time for her to find back into her old ways of handling flesh.

“I think I can,” she muttered, wisely supporting herself on the wall at her tries to rise, not on Michael’s hand – what good would it do if she brought them both down? 

Had it always been so difficult to find balance on two legs?

In getting up, ordering their meatsuits and forcing them to take a stable posture, in walking, the angels found that it was easier than it had appeared at first. The movements were inscribed in the muscles; it only took one push to get them to unwind. The challenge was to re-attune the brain and mind to the movements of their bodies; Uriel, for her part, felt faint nausea and dizziness upon her first tries to move with eyes open. Michael was doing better, presumably because her mind was fitter and more agile than her deputy’s. But in the end, after some thirty or forty minutes, the Archangels moved almost as if they had never taken off their flesh.

As soon as she was able to keep her balance and not respond with faintness to her own movements, Archangel Michael approached an etching of herself as a boyish soldier slaying a dragon. With a flick of her wrist, the work of art swung aside and revealed a safe box that Michael opened by entering a combination. “Take this,” she commanded her slowly and clumsily nearing companion and handed her an antique long sword – the safe was much bigger on the inside than its outside suggested and filled to the brim with bladed weapons, a bow and arrows and something that looked like a crossbow. “I know that it is not your weapon of choice, but I trust you will know to wield it. Outside there is, how does one say, _terra incognita_. We should not tackle it unarmed.”

Uriel, dutifully, took the blade and strapped it around her waist; Michael, meanwhile, reached for her own sword that enflamed upon her touch with a hiss. The pale Archangel contemplated it as if in relief as the fire’s heat glowed on her face; for her it must be the closest thing to coming home, or re-meeting a long lost relative. The weight of her own weapon in her hand…

“Stay behind me,” she ordered her second-in-command, making for the door, “but stay close, and no hurried movement.”

The uncannily familiar corridors and rooms of Heaven through which the Archangel’s steps resounded were troublingly empty. Neither Michael nor Uriel, however, trusted the deadly silence and destitution – more, they knew Heaven couldn’t be completely deserted. It made no sense. “Somebody has to be here – somebody carried us into my office, somebody has maintained our bodies,” Michael muttered to herself, but Uriel couldn’t bring herself to answer. She just opened her mouth to suggest checking the physical realm’s surface – maybe the remaining angels had settled there? – as she and Michael heard a voice issue from the biggest of the conference rooms, and both Archangels readied themselves for a struggle.

“…ot enough of us. By far not enough. I know that this is a worrying amount of negative energy, you needn’t tell me. But I need to work with what I have – the angels and the troops I have left – and not every battle will be as easy as the meeting with Hastur and Dagon in summer.”

“Chamuel?” Uriel whispered to her commander, but she merely shook her head; it meant _‘Keep your silence for a moment more’_ rather than _‘No, I don’t think so’_. She was visibly determined to investigate the voice, sneaked closer to the door which was slightly ajar while the argument inside continued.

Uriel followed on tiptoe, ready to strike at any moment.

“I know all that, damn it to Hell!”

“What did I tell you about profanity, Ambriel?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, off-limits to anyone save you. And that also only if…”

“I would have never even thought such a thing, let alone ordered it!” Outrage, righteous anger.

This was the moment in which Michael opened the door.

Had Uriel and Michael expected a specific reaction – well, it wasn’t the one they got.

The first voice had indeed belonged to Chamuel – Chamuel, who, still dressed in his obsolete celestial uniform and still wearing his sticking-out beard construction, seemed to have taken their place at the head of the celestial military, keeping together whatever scraps had remained. Now that he heard the squeak of the inward-swinging door he whirled around, reaching for his sword, and froze in his tracks as he beheld the intruders. The other angels present – three individuals; two flanking him and another half-hidden behind a machine only to be immobilized in shock – only stared.

The room, pale and empty apart from it, was dominated by some kind of monstrous machine with a multitude of little buttons and nervously flashing lights and one giant, sickly-green-black screen, apart from several smaller ones, which showed a shadowy, sketchy map of the world. Upon the map there were dots of various sizes and colours, glowing and pulsing. The machine gave a steady low drone but appeared docile and unthreatening apart from that.

Chamuel silently opened and closed his mouth a few times before he could decide on a course of action. “Much revered Archangels,” he finally muttered and dropped to his knees, his head bent subserviently, and one hand pressed to the centre of his chest. The towering, muscular female-presenting angel next to him whom Uriel recognized as Kushiel, leader to the Seven Angels of Punishment, soon did likewise; the male-presenting specimen at Chamuel’s other side, unarmed, but no less well-built than Kushiel, glanced disconcerted from one to the other, and the one who was in the back, behind the machinery, cautiously lifted his hands to signal his harmlessness.

Now, Uriel knew it, it was upon herself and Michael to act.

“You may rise, Chamuel,” the pale Archangel muttered throatily, “you too, Kushiel. What is the meaning of… all this? What kind of monster is this?”

“Did you preserve our bodies all the time?” Uriel interjected.

“Archangel Raphael took care of you,” Kushiel explained in rising and dusting off her skirt, and mention of her twin’s name sent a feverish arrow of shame through Uriel’s heart, “he claimed he wanted to do it all by himself. Now and then Assiel or Chamuel helped, but that's about it.”

“About ‘the meaning of this,’” said the angel within the machinery, still with his hands above his head, “this is… we may call it a surveillance monitor. My and Och’s invention. It measures celestial and infernal activity on Earth, localizes it and helps us decide where to send troops – maybe throw back some demons, sow some temperance, bestow the one or the other blessing.”

“Is that even possible?” Uriel asked, and she took a befuddled step closer to the machine.

“Oh, please!” the scientist ejected, staring challenging at the golden Archangel from below, “if the mortals can do that with weather phenomena and dust particles, what stops us from doing it with positive and negative energy? In fact I was just servicing this baby, so, if you wouldn’t mind too much I’d like to go back to wo…”

“Mumiah – watch your tongue and show Archangel Uriel the deference you owe!” Chamuel snapped, but Michael slowed him down with no more than a gesture.

“There is time for deference later – now, we need information,” she muttered, looking around worriedly, “you return to your work, Mumiah. Nobody intends to hinder you. And you, Chamuel…”, the Quartermaster stood at attention, his moustache bristled, “… can you give a status report – most ideally from the moment this machine started working to now? As cursory and vague it may ever be…”

Eager to comply, the Quartermaster nodded and reached for the clipboard that sat on one of the tables in front of the console. Uriel and Michael took places flanking him while Ambriel and Kushiel stepped away (she murmuring something about spreading the word) and the one called Mumiah dived into the mechanic entrails again. Chamuel started to explain, indicating each point of interest with a ballpoint pen, “Each one of these lights, revered Archangels, is an indication of supernatural energies. The lighter the colour, the higher the probability that it is positive, ergo celestial energy.” He indicated a massive, sluggishly turning vortex of pure white that sat toward the south of North America. This vortex bore a passing resemblance to an octopus, steadily reaching out into nothing and ever growing. “This is our most evident example of something heavenly… indeed we assume that the source of this is Archangel Gabriel’s aura, but well, I am getting ahead of myself.”

“Gabriel?” Michael’s eyebrow rose in doubt. “I think not. Do you see the dark streaks in this energy? Why would he surround himself with the likes of this?”

“That’s what we initially thought, as well.” Mumiah spoke up from the background, sticking his dust- and oil-smeared face up from behind a box. “But this is how it is, Archangel Michael. Amitiel swears up and down she has seen Gabriel as she went there to investigate.”

Uriel and Michael exchanged meaningful looks, the former with her lips pressed closed, the latter with her brow slowly returning to its usual place. This boded ill.

Mumiah submerged in the apparatus again.

“I also don’t want to deny that now and then, a powerful dark energy approaches this vortex’ centre,” Chamuel continued contemplatively, “an indisputably powerful demon who – after our interpretation – keeps Archangel Gabriel company. Or conspires with him – pardon my frankness, revered Archangels, but bearing in mind the latest, let us call them revelations, I am less than enthusiastic to trust Archangel Gabriel or anything he seems to be up to. I do not know what to think of the situation, but this is the way it presents itself.”

“Go on, go on,” Uriel demanded while Michael studied the screen with a grave expression.

“More unsettling, however, for us are these indications,” Chamuel continued, pointing out a multitude of smaller dots, scattered over the surface of Earth, of a plethora of sizes and colours. “Each one of them is a demon, more or less strong, and the infernal influence they have on their surrounding – I mean mostly the mortals. Most of them are bagatelles – tiny pinpricks, the demons hardly ever stay long enough with one project as to let it grow to a dangerous scale – but in accumulation, these bagatelles are sincerely perturbing.

You have to know that only a handful of demons have remained in Hell… the vast majority have scattered over Earth and are wreaking havoc there, destroying whatever they come close to. Some of them take advantage of older faiths, impersonate gods, let themselves be venerated, sacrificed to… some, on the other hand, live completely solitary. They are, as demons are by nature, very desirous and very self-serving… very territorial, too, to the place where they have settled for the moment. This means their combat among themselves is certainly as severe as that with us, but that should not lead us to underestimating them.

We know that this is Dagon.” He pointed to a dark blue dot in the southeast of the United Kingdom, mostly unmoving. “We have checked on her a couple of months ago as she was acting up and found Hastur with her, but there was no alliance between them. Had it just been a few minutes longer, she probably would have choked him to discorporation. Since then she has been largely unproblematic, and Hastur disappeared off the Earth’s surface.

Mammon and Berith settled down here.” Chamuel indicated a smudgy golden-yellow-orange light at the west coast of the USA. “The angels of wisdom have assured me that this place has been a centre of human materialism and covetousness long before they appeared and that they, therefore, cannot likely cause more harm than the humans would have done all by themselves.

The warlike demons have mostly moved down east…” he indicated a cluster of dots around the Arabian Peninsula, Asia Minor and North Africa, but also eastern Europe. A short buzzing emanating from his pocket hinted at someone having just dialled him, but Chamuel did not pay any mind. “… here, we have Andras, Glasya-Labolas, Eligos. Occasionally Leraje. Vepar, Crocell, Forneus have drawn back into the oceans. The only one who really troubles me is Kimaris over there in Korea… I know, momentarily everything is calm, but you can never tell what these humans will think of next.

The others…” Chamuel sighed dejectedly and lowered the pen, “… they are, sadly, harder to get a stranglehold on. There is a detailed list of last year’s events somewhere in this thing’s memory, linking each event firmly to a demon whom we have to thank for it and what we did in return – but that doesn’t take us a step closer to seizing and subduing them. They appear here and there, sow a bit of discord and disappear again. My soldiers report having encountered Beelzebub in France and Australia, among others, Paimon in Saudi-Arabia, Asmodeus in the Netherlands, Belial in the holy spaces of China… but as soon as I send someone to investigate, they have already vanished, or we have a skirmish at most. They are like fish – constantly slipping between our fingers – and I find myself more and more getting used to the thought of not being able to shut them down completely, so we have to limit ourselves to damage containment.”


	22. III/4: Reconciliation

“So you are fighting a lost cause,” Michael whispered without looking at the Quartermaster. In his pocket something buzzed anew; he, disgruntled, produced the phone to check its display, mutter something irreverent, make it hush up and put it away, turning toward the conversation once more.

He hesitated before answering Michael’s question, “Yes and no. We are confused indeed. Direc…”

This moment saw the chamber door flying open a second time – less cautious, in full awareness of injured pride. “Chamuel!” shouted a voice, audibly trying to maintain a façade of severity, fuming and yet fully unpractised in the display of vehemence, and the angels turned toward the entrance almost as one, “Did you forget your phone today or are you simply deaf? It’s _urgent_! Someone’s stol…”

It was Archangel Raphael who had stormed in and now stood in the doorframe, one hand still on the handle; his gaze met Uriel’s and his lips slackened. Uriel felt a tickle from her shoulders down to her midriff, wished to be able to avoid his glance and found she couldn’t. Michael stepped aside, Uriel noticed it in passing, and reached for Chamuel’s sleeve to pull him away with her.

“Someone’s stolen… my sister’s body… and Michael’s, yes, Michael’s is gone too… and now I need you to search it and bring it back…”

Uriel steeled herself and advanced; she softly bowed and attempted to force a smile onto her lips. Raphael seemed trimmer and cleaner than at their last meeting – more forceful, more radiant, concerning both body and mind. He had put on weight, appeared rounder and more inviting, less noble or awe-inspiring than her. Freedom, good company and the possibility to use his powers and fulfil what he perceived as his destiny seemed to have done wonders for him. 

“I am glad to see you again, brother.”

Raphael remained where he was for a couple of moments, silent still and obviously pondering; then a ferocious, almost spiteful grin dug into his features, and he approached Uriel with mighty strides, both hands lifted toward her with beckoning gestures. “No,” he muttered, “No bow. Don’t you dare selling us short like that. Oh no, no, no, sister dear, not like that. Not you. Not us. Come here, come to me, come into my arms, sister dear, you don’t even want to know how much I missed you…”

“Raphael, I beg you.” Uriel’s protest was not very impactful. She let Raphael approach, yet lifted her hands as if to shove him away as he had come at arms’ length. She even turned her head as if she couldn’t bear looking him in the eye. “Think of etiquette, think of what is…”

“What is proper?” He snorted. “If wanting to hug my own sister after being separate from her for centuries is wrong, there’s no reason and no rhyme in being right.”

With which he wound his arms around Uriel’s shoulders and pulled her close, rested his chin on her shoulder blade, attentive to not squeeze too tight; Uriel closed her eyes and tried to relax, yet was not thoroughly successful. Everything she managed was to put her hands onto her twin’s back. It was a peculiar, unfamiliar and, she had to admit, not fully dreadful feeling.

“Dear, dear,” he muttered, drawing back a bit without letting go of her, “you’re still stiff as a poker. And that though you had all these centuries to practice with Michael…”

The crossness she was used to flooded back in Uriel’s mind – and she was almost grateful, since this made it easier to fight back against her brother. “Raphael,” she hissed, “Watch – your mouth!”

Uriel quickly turned her head to cast a catch-up glance at Michael and Chamuel. The Pale one stood with her fingers linked in front of her abdomen, her expression unreadable-stony, while the Quartermaster seemed to toil in unspeakable fury at the Healer’s insolence.

Raphael stared at her as if she had punched him in the gut – there was surprise in his face, incomprehension and a tad of hurt, just for a moment. Then he grinned again, massaging his wrinkled forehead. “Uriel,” he admonished, “Dearest sister – I told you you need to warm her up. How do you imagine that to work if you keep only making smitten eyes at her from afar?”

“I think my relationship to my superior is up to me and me alone,” she snapped, and Raphael tilted his head and cast her a reproachful look.

“You do understand, do you, why things cannot work like that fore…”

“As much as I dislike breaking up this heart-warming reunion,” Michael interjected with a mere hint of impatience – Uriel couldn’t help but cast her a grateful glance for what she interpreted as her General coming to her aid, “we were in the middle of a status report as you entered, Raphael. Can we continue, by your leave? Greetings, by the by.”

For Michael, a simple bow seemed to suffice as a greeting, and she accepted it with no more than a dismissive gesture; and as Uriel reprised her position at Chamuel’s side, her brother followed as if glued to her. He stood behind her, his arms remaining around her torso, his head continuing to rest on her shoulder, and despite everything, she hardly felt pushed to shoo him off. In some ways he was right, after all… they, twin siblings, had been kept separate for centuries, by physical as well as political barriers. Now that both seemed to have been torn down, she could hardly paint his happiness as something negative.

The Quartermaster cleared his throat. “As I was saying…” he continued, turning first toward the machine, then toward Michael, “… sometimes, there’s confusion. Our numbers are too small to counter all threats effectively. But nobody here – nobody! – has doubted for one moment that this is what we are supposed to do. My entire choir stood by me, and by you, like during the Revolution. The Angels of Punishment have remained. Those who work with Raphael support us, and we them. We do what we can in holding high our loyalty and task, and we know, even if we cannot beat them anymore, we must do what we can to push Hell back”.

Uriel’s features were quite close to slipping into a smile. She had missed hearing that.

Michael nodded – it was hard to discern whether she meant to express understanding or respect. “Have there been tries to find out what Gabriel plans?” Michael’s voice sounded forced. It was as if she feared something.

“Why does he not help keeping the demons at bay?” Uriel appeared rather at a loss.

Raphael snorted derogatively. “Because he’s an egomaniac on a power trip, that’s why,” he opined, though no one seemed to pay much attention to him.

Uriel could feel his jaw’s movement against her fleshy shoulder, and it irked her to no end. So long she had been unphysical, and now this…

Chamuel shrugged. “We don’t come near much. Amitiel reported that he made her understand quite eloquently that she wasn’t welcome and that he didn’t want anything to do with us anymore. I cannot force anyone to moral and dutiful behaviour.” This remark, however, seemed to have a lot to do with what Raphael had voiced in its bitter cynicism.

Uriel knew that Chamuel, quite like herself or Michael, did not have any warm feelings for renegades, deserters, turncoats or betrayers, those who were lax with questions of allegiance, and if they had been twenty times higher in rank. In the best case he would glare at them along his nose; in the worst case they would taste his wrath. And it was still better to be subject to his wrath than Michael’s…

“I reckon we will not be able to discern much more from here,” Michael finally expressed her thoughts, “I think Uriel and I must descend and approach him ourselves to make up our own minds.”

“Amitiel is, after all… she isn’t half as close to him as we were, back in the day,” Uriel suggested, her tongue lame and lips dry.

\-------------------------------------------------

Crowley leapt out of his vehicle like the proverbial scalded cat and shook as if under electric shock. There you had a nice evening with a friend for one time – _one single blessed time!_ – and then this.

Aziraphale was by his side momentarily, visibly disturbed and unsettled, but trying his best to not let the situation slip out of hand – the words he said, however, fell on deaf demonic ears. Two angels, considerable bigwigs too, who still had their heads lodged firmly up their asses had miracled themselves into his car of all places, hadn’t even been courteous enough to wait until he had parked, and the demon didn’t even want to estimate how much detergent and air freshener he would need to get their stink out of the Bentley’s seats and atmosphere.

As he finally steeled himself far enough that he could lift his glance from the pavement, the two geese had taken position next to the car and stared at them, one self-importantly severe, the other one mildly patient, but no less snotty. How much he had hoped to never encounter these faces again… it didn’t help much, either, that last time he had seen one of these faces, he had been shackled to a chair and not in the fun way that you could effortlessly disentangle in an emergency. He felt himself want to snap at them, tell them that they should better keep their distance to his car, but his throat felt obstructed and he unable to utter a single sound.

“What in the nine Hells are you doing here?” he breathed painstakingly.

“Good to hear you have decided to join the discussion,” Michael said, putting the stomach-churning parody of a smile onto her wrinkled, elderly face, “as I already said, we do not mean any harm… all we want is to talk.”

“It would be about this planet – if this changes your outlook at all,” Uriel added helpfully. Crowley caught himself in finding her voice pleasant to the ear, which only served to upset him even more.

“I don’t know, dear, but maybe we should listen to what they have to say,” Aziraphale muttered, putting a hand on his shoulder, which made the desire to slap him bud in Crowley. _If only you knew_ , he thought furiously. _If only you knew how they would have treated you prior to your execution…_

“Maybe we should kick their butts and leave them for the vultures!” he hissed, throwing up his arms in an almost comical gesture, “after all they have done this is the absolute least – the _bare minimum_ of what retribution they deserve!”

Aziraphale opened his mouth to say something, but the military official beat him to it, “I do not understand your reservation. There is no reason for hostility.”

The demon turned away with a grunt; Aziraphale, however, defended them, “Excuse us, Michael – in the light of past, um, let’s say past events, well, I would have to lie to say that we had any reason to just trust you like that, you see.”

Michael nodded gravely, linked her fingers in front of her torso – and said something the demon would have never expected her to say. “In this, you are right. We cannot deny this without doing truth a disservice. We have given you no reason to confide in us in the past years, maybe even centuries. I cannot apologize for nor justify our actions, not in earnest, since from our point of view, we did what was right and just. What I, however, can assure you is that the past events, as you called them, have left their marks; that I have considered them and drawn conclusions and that it appears the most appropriate thing now to change my world view and attitude.”

Crowley lifted a brow in cajoling disbelief while on Aziraphlae’s face – probably a mere reflex – there formed exactly that dreaded smile that meant he would soon be gracious host. The demon wanted to prevent it, very much indeed, but the knowledge that he just had witnessed an upheaval barred any rational action. One of the celestial white-collar-types had – however circuitous and coldly emotionless – _apologized_ for their actions of the past and promised to change. This all had to be a wacky dream.

“And I guess we’re supposed to simply eat this up,” he muttered, warily and drained.

Aziraphale merely uttered a feeble, “Wherefore…”

Michael’s brow twitched. “I fail to comprehend how ingestion of material nourishment pertains to the situation,” she said.

Crowley sighed, adjusting his sunglasses. Having spent centuries with Aziraphale, he knew that ‘ingestion of material nourishment’ ( _goodness gracious_ , and he had thought Aziraphale had a long-winded and hard-to-digest turn of phrase) pertained to everything on God’s beautiful Earth, but this was neither here nor there. “What I mean is, Archangel Michael, that you seem to suppose we’ll simply believe any word from your worshipful mouth,” he clarified antagonistically.

Michael waved this away and advanced a measured step. Uriel didn’t follow; she merely surveyed the situation like a good watchdog. 

“In remembering that I am servant firstly to the Almighty and Creator,” she explained, “and only secondly to Gabriel. Believe it, Crowley, or do not; that is up to you alone. After the apocalypse was foiled, it was obvious that we needed to change our ways. I always was one who does what is necessary to do, and so I faced this and pondered it as best as I was able to. By saving you,” Michael’s steely, penetrating gaze shifted from Crowley to Aziraphale and back, “elevating you and preserving you even in the thrall of the elements that should have reduced you to nothingness, and making us laughing stock in front of you, the Almighty gave us a sign. A sign that I take to mean: these two do something right that all of us do wrong.” She paused. Her words hung in the air like a brewing thunderstorm. “Now I am not absolutely certain yet what the consequences will be, what exactly we will have to change, but this is the point from which I approach you.”

Crowley said nothing, kept his teeth clenched. He couldn’t think of an answer to such disarming honesty and bluntness.

Aziraphale took this as his cue to enter in the conversation, taking a self-assured step towards Michael and Uriel, “You said, Archangel Michael, this was about… Earth. Might I ask what the meaning of this might be?”

“We have reasons to believe the political, military and natural upheavals of the last few months to be Beelzebub’s and Gabriel’s work,” Uriel solemnly explained. “We believe they are preparing a second war – this time strictly among themselves, and using humans as their soldiers.”


	23. III/5: Sariel

People poured in.

Not many at first; friends and family and more or less distant acquaintances of the ones who had initially been in that church. Then, by word of mouth and some more or less savvy propaganda by the one or the other hobbyist or professional journalist who came to attend, more and more people found their interest piqued, and they came in to see what all the fuss was about. 

Some came undercover, some overtly. 

Some searched escapade, others searched meaning, guidance, a sense of purpose. 

Gabriel took every single one into consideration.

People poured in; by the tens, the hundreds, the five hundreds. People called or wrote from other parts of the world to inquire, some more alarmed, some more intrigued. Vatican City, as far as Gabriel had been able to discern, treated the events with caution and reservation, mostly not wanting to have anything to do with them, at least not until tangible evidence of anything supernatural was available. (And how were you to supply something like that?) Media coverage started slow, but happened, and Gabriel was confident that soon, all the world would know of him and his exploits.

Some of them stayed; Gabriel saw to it that they were treated well.

Some of them left; Gabriel saw to it that they were ostracised.

He was justifiably coy with further miracles; humans, this was his stout opinion, needed to work and prove their worth before such a boon could be granted. It went without saying that this also meant a lot of work for himself. Until he found some clean and eager enough to proceed, elevate them to higher stages of purity and divinity, he would have to be surrounded by the unclean and troubled, the half-and-half, but he thought himself strong enough to stomach it, for some time at least. He had put up with so much in the past centuries, more or less dignifiedly and silently; this here would not make him cave in.

And yet, memories were haunting him. _Oh Sariel…_

“You will have to be like me,” the Archangel preached with a wry smile on his face and his huge, sinewy hands folded in front of his chest. He walked through the rows of his congregation with long, self-assured strides, smiling left and right, sunning in their admiration. “Clean and bright, righteous and upstanding, a beacon to all those around you. Keep them who you trust close. Oust all influence to the other side – do not allow for it to taint you.”

Gabriel breathed their admiration. It was like warm wind in his lungs.

Zachary, the boy out of whose innermost he had pulled sin like a gardener tore weeds out of dry soil, acted in not quite describable ways. His unnatural purity craved Gabriel’s unnatural purity, therefore he mostly stayed close to the Archangel, but he never seemed really pleased to be there. This was unsettling; it hinted at the sins Gabriel had uprooted having been deeply anchored within him, so deeply that removing them had left bleeding sores. At him… somehow having _liked_ them to be there, or seeing them as integral to himself.

Inacceptable.

Still, the blessing had done its work, and that was all that counted. The boy’s parents recounted to Gabriel that occasionally he would inadvertently freeze in what he was doing, that his breath halted and his eyeballs rolled back into their sockets, that he staggered, that sometimes even his legs gave and he crumpled to the ground. Gabriel had taken it with lordly satisfaction and explained that these were unconscious reactions originating in his newly cleansed soul that strived instinctively to preserve this new state of being – that did what it could to prevent the weak flesh from drowning it in mud and depravity again.

By their nature, human souls were not cut out for the amount of purity and sacredness that he had put upon Zachary’s, Gabriel knew it well… but an Archangel had to work with what he got his hands on, and this situation called for desperate measures.

“For this, my dear humans, is the one chance you, I mean we, get,” he continued, trying not to sound too ominous, “The one and _only_ chance. I advocate kindness and compassion, I really do!” He gave short, unfeeling laughter. “But, dear congregation, kindness and compassion has its end: exactly at the point where it would rush you and the object of said compassion both into the abyss. So, what I say is: we must be beacons, yes, light and immaculate and warm to light the way for ourselves and those who are dear to us; but we must also be a barricade, strong and unyielding in order to keep the devils out.”

_We cannot allow them to taint us. We must oust them from our holy, clean, splendid realm so they may exist in the puddles of their own wickedness, huddle in their own vileness, choke on their own deplorable thoughts… If they choose damnation, let them have it, but let them not make light of us, our clear minds and righteous ideas!_

His fingers combed absent-mindedly through Zachary’s hair; the kneeling boy quivered. Gabriel tasted a twitch away from him, from his touch in the boy’s mind, but it didn’t manifest. The Archangel sighed to himself. That was something everyone – hopefully – would need to work through, time by time.

_Sariel_ … Sariel was ever there, a piercing, annoying presence. He couldn’t tell what it was that reminded him of her so much, and yet, the memories refused to subside.

 _Creatures make their decisions_ , he told himself, dismissing the congregation. “Leave now and be merry,” he heard himself murmur, turning toward the back of the church he still held his events in, and wished his words might apply to himself, as well; he dearly missed some merriment. He missed light-heartedness and diversion, even his usual jogging. A bit of relaxation… so long gone. Israfil had always made such indescribable, heavenly music – it seemed ages like he had been able to relish it.

The humans had a small festival in the church’s backyard which he left them to momentarily; music, dancing, nutrition, everything that seemed to make a festival on Earth. A flock of birds circled in the sky, probably waiting for scraps; he thought he recognized at least one eagle among the usual doves, sparrows and possibly small buzzards, but that thought he only had in passing.

Gabriel was scheduled to have a meeting, later, with some of the political higher-ups of this city and had to prepare mentally and gather his arguments and demands about him. Apart from that, his suit was soaked… all the hard work he wasn’t used to, not in that form, and then the fact that Earth was warmer and stuffier than Heaven. He had to return to his office and change.

Now, where had he left off? Gabriel muttered unarticulated words to himself as he entered his refuge, slammed the door close and slumped into his chair. _Yes, living beings make their own decisions; celestial ones, infernal ones, even mortal ones._ Even for Zachary, there would come a time when his compulsion to be at a distance to earthly sin would diminish and allow him to taint himself again. _And they need to be held accountable for them._

Gabriel had made his decision, and he would stand by it until the end; Sariel had made hers. Nothing was to be done about that.

And yet…

He had no idea why these thoughts tortured him so since he had decided to make Heaven and Hell things of the past. The bitter, biting pain he had had buried so deeply beneath duty and cold detestation had somehow wrestled itself free of its bounds and now demanded its tribute with impertinent persistence – pain of centuries long past.

He could have seen it coming as Sariel had, out of reasons that had been nebulous to him back in the day, insisted on having Michael give her basic training. As a member of administrative staff of her calibre – as one under the symbol of the Crown – she wouldn’t have had any need of it. He himself would only over his discorporated body ever touch a weapon, let alone go to war. The mere thought of the inconveniences and ignominies of physical struggle made him retch. All these stains! Sweat, blood, mud and crusts, searing holes, gunpowder, maybe even spittle… the disgrace and the danger of having his immaculate skin wounded… anger and fear, all the death... no, struggle and combat were not for him.

They shouldn’t have been for Sariel, either! What did they have soldiers for?

He could have seen it coming.

But he hadn’t.

That was why everything that Gabriel retained of Sariel, his cherished twin sister, was memory, a piece of cloth shredded off her garment and a tuft of hair that someone must have cut off her head in close combat and that – he remembered all too well – had been nonchalantly and with a pretentiously apologetic look dropped onto his desk by a low-ranking soldier, someone so ludicrously pathetic that Gabriel didn’t even remember their name, nor thought he’d ever known it.

She had been killed. Murdered. And it had been upon him to carry on, to shoulder her responsibilities additionally to his own and to live with the tormenting memory that refused to fade. For some time, he had violently detested any angel face that turned to him with the unspoken need of guidance and fortification, any administrator or diplomat of hers that now turned to him instead of Sariel and who showed all too visibly in their expressions that they were thinking of _her_ , of their routines, her way of handling things, her voice and snide smile.

Fury had obstructed his ears and smothered his mind in these moments, and he had comprehended that he wasn’t to let himself be steered by emotions.

“Even if I had seen it coming,” he asked the empty chamber, bitter aggression in his voice, “what should I have done? She made her decision…”

He broke off mid-sentence. Everything came down to _choices_.

Gabriel closed his eyes and rested his head against the chair’s backrest, waiting for these ideas to vacate the back of his head. He had no use for them right now. He had to show a cheerful, confident front to his sheep, as well as to the dogs he planned to hire for herding them in.

The Silvery one mustered his calm slowly, but steadily, threw his suit into the chest in the adjoining room that held used clothes and picked out an unused one that was ghostly similar to the old one. The textile was cool, smooth and reassuring to his skin… still, Gabriel had to prevent himself actively from pulling the tie knot all too tight around his throat so it would strangle the grumble that nested in there, strangle it like an unwanted kitten.

This grumble grew in strength the longer he was away from Heaven… and the longer he remained in the dark as far as Beelzebub’s moves were concerned.

Gabriel returned to the festival soon, but only perceived what was happening in vague, blurry colours and indistinguishable drones. The dancing, singing, prattling and otherwise aimlessly waddling humans and their happy-go-lucky expressions; their steps and lunges not always in time with the music. The curs that hopped between them – Gabriel couldn’t stand dogs, he had no words for why. They appeared to him even more brainless and disordered than humans, and everything that could not be described as part of a fixed system disgusted him. There were the smells of what they called nutrition, overlaying everything – sugar, sugar, fat and more sugar. Even the vegetables they bathed in fat before they consumed them. Sickening. Isda would have suffered a nervous fit.

Gabriel moved uncomfortably and staggeringly among the people – a bit as if he had to walk on stilts. The determination and energy of the first months had been eaten away by an odd, creeping weariness and disinterest that swamped more and more of his body and mind, and a lordly impatience toward the slothful minds of the humans surrounding him, whom he had to smile at and inspire either way, whom he had to make believe that he still served the task of guiding them with fervour.

Not even the angels had produced such an ennui within him.

If it just could be over, finally all over.

Gabriel could hardly handle the constant hubbub and bustle around him. Having to live down here on a steady basis overloaded his delicate senses and wore him out to a worrying rate. He wondered how Beelzebub might fare.

He didn’t understand them. If he just a simple handle on what made them tick.

After a few minutes of observation, coming to the conclusion that everything was untroubled, that he had done enough public-relations-work for one day, the Archangel retreated to his office to close his eyes, breathe deep and gather his wits about him in medicative silence. _Just this final strain_ , he told himself. _Take one final stand, and…_

“Mr. Gabriel?”

The priest stood in the doorframe. Behind him waited three humans, one woman, two men, one sporting an impressive moustache, every one of them sporting spectacularly ill-fitting suits. This in itself was enough to make Gabriel wish to turn them away, but…

“The mayor and his advisors are here, as was arranged.”

Gabriel pulled himself together, took a professional stance and beckoned for the humans to enter. He did not rise to greet them, merely quietly indicated the seats he had prepared. Much, he had learned in his time of managing Heaven, depended on making an imposing initial impression.

The Archangel was well aware, as the politicians gradually slipped into their seats, that they assumed he wasn’t all there in his head. A man, after all, pretending to be the Archangel Gabriel – who now tried to gain political influence! To negotiate with those who legitimately wielded power! Was that not completely unheard-of? He, who definitely was no more and no less an angel than any of them, must have orchestrated the events in the church by outlandish means and fooled everybody present… by now, sad but true, people were prepared to put their faith in every littlest spark of hope.

How aggravating all this was…

Father Francis must have warned them, Gabriel reckoned with mild annoyance – the priest was still there, doing his sacred duty and treating Gabriel with outspoken mistrust. The Archangel mostly repaid this by utterly neglecting him. What difference could one single mannikin and his dissent make in the grand scheme of things?

Archangel Gabriel would have his respite, and salvation – no matter what a little ape like Francis thought about it.


	24. III/6: Negotiations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter carries a warning for transphobia. I tried to keep it mild, but you never know.  
> Please be wary, and take care of yourselves.

The politicians, having taken their seats, seemed to wait for his opening. The woman, inaccessible and her hair grey even though she could hardly be fifty, sat to the left. The middle seat had been occupied by a younger man, wearing narrow, frameless glasses which did nothing to hide his pinkish and black-ringed eyes, who visibly clung to each speck of his impartiality. To the right sat a short man who was so round he couldn’t even cross his legs, whose collar and tie were too tight and who, maybe because of this very thing, made a rather aggressive impression.

“Welcome, Lady, Gentlemen,” Gabriel greeted civilly, resting his elbows on the table.

“Thank you for the invitation,” Middle began stiffly; his voice was low, the diction restrained, it was evident that he had no idea how to approach this situation. “I am the mayor, Gareth Artenhauser. My advisors Mildred Inners,” the lady in her black pantsuit nodded cagily, “and Hal Aaronson. We know who you are.”

 _Or, more accurately, who you claim to be_ , was the unspoken undertone.

“And, let me tell you, your… activities… have raised much a brow in our office. It is one thing to found a new religious movement…”

“What we have is by no means limited to religion and the thereafter,” Gabriel relativized.

“… which would have been my next point.” The mayor’s voice was rough and dark; Gabriel had not made the effort of holding on to his name. “There is nothing – I repeat: _nothing at all_ that gives you the right to incite the people – any people – to some sort of war against… someone. Or something. Do you see how vague all this is? I feel no joy in telling you this, and with all respect for your faith which you seem to follow with quite some zeal, but Satan is not real. There are no devils we need to fortify against. To separate people with such a brash lie…” The man’s voice drifted away, yet his point stood.

“Which is why, Lady, Gentlemen, I plan to do the opposite,” Gabriel put forward, linking his fingers in front of him, “I strive to unite people.”

“You strive to go to war,” Left muttered over crossed arms.

“Nothing could be further from the truth.” Gabriel didn’t hesitate a single moment. “War will come, no matter what I will or will not do. What I strive for is… let us call it a purification. I plan to protect those who want it from the cataclysms of the world – cataclysms that you, Lady, Gentlemen, cannot just explain away. I plan to make this place – after that, this city – after that, this state – after that, this continent and finally the world as a whole an oasis of purity and goodness where nobody has to fear their neighbour. Where peace and harmony and justice prevail.” Gabriel’s glance was steely; he kneaded his knuckles while he spoke. Every moment that he had to sweet-talk these meat puppets was an itch in his immortal flesh.

“Might be.” Middle took the word again while Left failed to react altogether and Right screwed up his face. “But let us say that the methods you chose to achieve world peace, if I may shorten it to that, are… questionable. Just the claim to be an angel… apart from the fact that this excludes a multitude of people… that the God most people here place their faith and confidence in does not exist or… care… is not willing to take their problems for granted.”

Gabriel’s glance was rigid and piercing. His voice crackled like an insufficiently oiled hinge. “I am afraid I do not quite follow. So you would prefer if somebody tried to influence people by directing their gazes, and attentions toward some hazy afterlife…?”

“I would prefer,” Middle replied sharply, one hand in the air as if ready to lash out, “if you would abstain from manipulating people altogether.”

Thick, smothering silence filled the room; Gabriel leant back once more, his lower jaw protruding and his expression stony.

 _Control… your emotions_ , he implored himself. _Control yourself. They are mere humans… they have no idea what they are saying. The Almighty will forgive them… so I don’t have to._

“But since the situation happens to be as it is,” Middle continued, his voice ever so slightly more grounded and business-like, “since so many people seem so see something in what you offer, and since you have not committed a crime – as of now,” these words received ominous, meaningful stress, “we perhaps have to humour you for the time being. Arrange with you, so to speak. Keep up appearances. So – what are your demands?”

Gabriel stayed silent.

“Now come on.” Finally Right entered the conversation; his voice was remarkably thin and croaky for a man of his size. “You haven’t invited us of neighbourly courtesy or brotherly love for coffee and cake. You want something.”

“We are on the path to salvation,” Gabriel began solemnly, “that might be true – and yet the path of the righteous is never unbeleaguered, never undisturbed, and there are robbers and other unsavoury folk at every twist and turn. There are many who are opposed to our way, to our reaching the light, who will also make this known loudly and unabashedly, and we stand against them, weak and vulnerable and without guards. This has to change.” Gabriel leant over the table again, shifted his gaze slowly from one interlocutor to the next, made sure they all felt sufficiently squeamish. “We need guardians. Police, Military, whatever you can muster. And we need these guardians as soon as possible.”

Silence took the room anew; it prevailed until Left turned away in helpless, thin laughter and Middle spoke again. Right merely stared as if he mused he was surrounded by crackheads. “What to hell and back _is wrong with you_? Do you even understand what you’re asking for?”

“My sister has to hear about this, she won’t believe…” Left muttered, but Gabriel ignored her.

“The bare minimum,” he said calmly.

“And how do you imagine that will work?” Middle’s voice slowly left unbelieving and suspicious behind in order to sound more angered and livider. “Do you expect me to petition the President for a military contingent – or consign a division of our local police to guard the grounds of a sect?” He pronounced the word ‘sect’ as if it was something revolting that he simply had to get out of his mouth – a centipede, maybe. Gabriel managed to limit his reactions to a twitch of his lips. “Now you must forgive me, but you have to see that things are not all that simple.”

The Archangel had prepared to answer something degrading as the door was thrown open and a panting woman rushed in; she seemed to utterly neglect the politicians, her whole attention rested upon Gabriel who measured her severely. “Gabriel,” she managed between some rather pathetic attempts to force some oxygen into her respiratory tract, “You should… something… something’s going on in the yard, you should… have an eye on this…”

 _Oh dear._ What was the matter now? You could not leave these leeches to their own devices for a handful of minutes…

Disgruntled, but following the call of responsibility, Gabriel finally rose under the questioning looks of his guests. “You are dismissed for today,” he grumbled, turning toward the exit, “I trust you will find the exit on our own. But do not forget me and my demands – the day will come when it will be less easy for you to refuse me.” With this he nodded towards the woman who waited for him, her face red and her whole body in restless yen for movement.

Half along the way, the woman’s guidance became superfluous – if he followed the crowing voices, he was certain to find what the tumult was about. With a grim face he passed by his leader and beheld a group of people, standing in a circle – he could see no more than backs and backs of heads, and their words were such an unruly mess that he was unable to discern a single one.

Hardly an arm’s length away from the wall of backs, the Archangel stopped and put his hands to his hips. “What is going on?” he thundered over the hubbub; the people, surprised by him, immediately bustled apart as if to make an aisle for the Archangel. Gabriel could now see the circle’s centre: there crouched – was it a somebody or a something? It breathed, that much was certain, and was clothed in something that seemed to be of good quality and solid make, but showed a pattern that was too shrill for Gabriel’s eye; it reminded him of kimonos he had seen with a print of pinkish cherry blossoms. A high-heeled shoe, heel broken off, was on one of the person’s feet; the other one stuck in the mud some steps away. The person had pinkish-red hair, bound to a ponytail and visibly fake, and as he finally grappled himself in a halfway upright position, Gabriel could label this being as a male human adult. Runny make-up stuck around his swollen and stained eyes, and the blood of his torn-open lip mixed with pink lipstick.

“What… _is going on_?” he repeated, more intense and cutting now, stalking amidst the people and casting a superior look around, “Have I lost the ability to produce clear speech, or why does no-one see the need to respond?”

“We found… that on the street.” A teenager stepped forward, a little snotnose, his voice unsteady and his face a strange mixture of anger and humility. Someone put a hand on his shoulder to pull him back; he ignored it. “Walked there as if it was nobody’s problem.”

“What… exactly… _is_ the actual problem, now?” Gabriel asked, wrestling for composure.

The victim spat and tried to fight himself upright. Gabriel approached, offering his hand in assistance; the man, however, flinched, lost his balance and fell again.

“That supposed to be a gag?” A second voice, high, cynical, mad, still taken with the rapture of the abuse of this person. “Look at ‘im! Shame! A man, wearing his sister’s clothes!”

“Or his mother’s!”

“I fail to see the problem,” Gabriel reiterated. He searched and found eye contact to the victim – _do not fear_ , he tried to tell the human wordlessly, _no suffering will befall you anymore._ He knelt to pick up the ruined shoe; his glance soon had turned up the missing heel.

Nobody spoke for a moment or two – then, “If God had wanted that we…”

That was enough.

“If you had complied in any way with what God wanted, all of you would be naked!” Gabriel snapped, awe-inspiring even in his hunkering position, and the group around him mostly stumbled back, “without this original sin that remains in all of you… ah, what am I even talking for. To spread discord because of such a thing! Because of something that means suffering for no-one. Sometimes I wonder what creatures, what a world the Almighty has left to me to administrate.” Spoken too hastily, to freely, indeed – but for the moment, Gabriel didn’t care. Let them fear him alright!

He produced the heel from the muck and turned toward the victim. “What’s your name?”

The man merely wheezed.

“But it is a sin to act against…”

“Yes?” Gabriel interrupted the meddlesome one in a sluggish, mock-perplexed tone, “You want to educate me on the topic of sin, is that it? Fine then. Go ahead. Come forth and name the deadly sin this creature has committed. Impart your wisdom on us all!”

Gabriel approached the man, fixed shoe and heel with a miracle and offered him the second one. The man wavered, but finally sat up – cautiously, as if he didn’t trust the situation – to accept it back.

“What kind of crazies are you…” the man’s lips formed, but it was a whisper so low that only the Archangel’s supernatural hearing could discern it, and he was not keen on answering.

“Vanity?” A timid voice out of the crowd.

Gabriel kept the answer in mind for later. “Will you be fine? Are you badly injured?”

No answer. Perhaps he was still traumatized from the attack.

 _Fine by me_ , Gabriel thought. With one lifted hand he called upon celestial powers and healed the man to the extent of his competence, feeling a little better about the situation and himself for it. Nobody should be able to accuse him of not looking out for the weak.

“Being well dressed is not vanity,” he finally rebuffed, not even finding it necessary to research the person having put ‘vanity’ forward, “being well dressed is a right everyone should have. Apart from that, it is only a body. A ludicrously vulnerable, undurable amalgamation of flesh and skin, bone and sinew – you take care of the soul below. Predominantly your own soul, if you understand what I am going for.”

Only the purest one had any right to judge anyone else. And as long as he was near…

After that, he lifted out of the muck, cracking his knees and dusting off his hands, looking around majestically. “Two of you stay to tend to this poor worm here and take him to safety,” he ordered, “the rest of you will clean up and think about what you have done. Think long and hard. I don’t ever want to be called to such a disgraceful scene again. And you…” with which he turned toward the man whose fear only slowly subsided in favour of sheer incomprehension, “… do yourself a favour and wear something by Chanel, next time.”

With which he turned around, clasping his hands behind his back, and retreated, severely shaking his head. Humans, these… these unbelievable human creatures. And those were supposed to be the Almighty’s master stroke – those should be worth the angels’ efforts? It would be ludicrous if it wasn’t so damned sad. Gabriel could for the life of his not understand what made them value their impermanent mortal shells before their undying souls.

The three politicians stood at the church portal and seemed to have well observed the scene. Gabriel passed them by without as much as a by-your-leave; but he sensed that he had at least succeeded in confusing and unsettling them.

That was worth something, too.


	25. III/7: Fever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two things before we dive into this chapter.  
> One, this chapter jumps back and forth between a distant past and a feverish present. I have used double spacing to separate the two levels more intuitively - still, it might be a bit of a pain to read.  
> Two, this (and the next) chapter contain excessive references to violence, culminating in drawing and usage of a taser. Please beware, be safe, and as last time, take care of yourself.
> 
> I am sorry.

Beelzebub remembered.

Being created hadn’t been easy for zim – being first barely a conscious thing, enveloped by the undisturbed, whirring nothingness of the ether, the only sensation the blowing and fluttering of an indescribable storm. Then, unexpectedly: a clear distinction between inside and outside. 

Suddenly: legs, arms, a torso, a head, hands, toes, hair, wings in zir back, three pairs, silvery white, and skin that separated zim from the ether.

Suddenly: eyes, ears, nose. Vision, hearing, smells, taste.

Suddenly: vocal folds and lungs that were filled with something that was called ‘language.’ Enochian.

Suddenly: emotions – a pull in zir chest, warmth inside zir skin, cold outside, rustling and softness of wings against zir ears.

Suddenly: inconsistency.

And another creature next to zim, taller, edgier, more forbidding, but clothed in the same silvery stone-grey as zie and wearing the same incomprehension on his face. (What was a face?) From a distance, two creatures clad in blinding white had watched them, both carrying flaming swords, and a voice out of empty space had addressed them: it had given them names and told them they would manage, govern, administrate – Head and Crown.

Head and Crown.

These words should have meant nothing to zim, and yet they had, on a hard-to-grasp instinctive level. Zie shouldn’t even have grasped the concept of a name, and yet as zie heard it, zie automatically recognized it and adopted it as zir own. It was eerily like it all had been innate, what was right and what belonged to zim. Zie had never seen flames, or swords. Zie had no way to tell what zieself looked like in this body zie should never have possessed, and yet zie had simply known what the names of things were and that the two white-clad creatures resembled zim and the one next to zim at least in principle.

Now Beelzebub haunted Earth and caused eruptions everywhere zie took rest.

The rats that zie called together out of their retreats in sewage and refuse of the canals and sent them out again, filled with multitudes of little pests and germs.

The children who by night had demolished their school and danced in the embers.

The wives who congregated behind their husbands’ backs and conspired to pay them back for _it_ – poison and needles and knives.

The husbands who congregated behind their wives’ backs and conspired to pay them back for _it_ – guns and fists and clubs.

The pupils and students whose dissatisfaction with their teachers grew ever more vocal and more violent.

The little animals, the vermin, thin legs and iridescent wings out of fragile skin, knubby joints, compound eyes and keenly working mouthparts, just all too eager to bite and sting and inject venomous spittle. Beelzebub accepted their stings and bites, put up with the wounds, the itching, the pus and the resulting scars and rashes calmly since it allowed for experimentally answering one paramount question, namely: what would happen if one being, having spent centuries in a moist, decrepit hole in the ground and laden with all the germs and viruses that existed therein, shared zir contaminated blood with a multitude of insects, fleas, ticks, vampire bats and others of their ilk, who would then spread all these germs squarely over the world? The thrill was hardly to be contained.

The punks, dropouts and rebels of the world who attacked police people, muzzled journalists and government officials, who wrecked schools, libraries, museums, burnt houses of religion, robbed banks, burgled editorial offices and radio centres, devastated seats of high political functionaries or parliaments and generally reduced everything they got their hands on to smoking rubble.

The prison inmates who hardly needed any spurring to rise sadistically against their wardens.

The protesters who were all too prone to provoke heated fist fights with the executive. Zie remembered with glee those, in Hong Kong if memory served, that zie had pushed as far as to storm this government building, this institute, this glass turret and reduce everything to splinters and shards, provoke short circuits, commit arson, endanger lives – just to show that they were a force to be reckoned with.

Pacifist protest? Pacifist protest didn’t exist – or at least it shouldn’t. Whatever could be achieved by demonstrating one was able to come together, stand and walk, intone battle chants and hold up signs and some such? Oh no, glass needed to be shattered, skin and bone to be torn, the placidity needed to be disturbed, fire had to break out and old patterns and convictions needed to be shredded. If these things didn’t happen, the protest would fade away unheard, and Beelzebub was less than ready to accept this.

One day, zie had been running through the rain forest, damp and depressing and humid and yet full of life, and had, until it was gone, hardly paid notice to the big leonine predator that had kept zir pace, circumventing trees, leaping over protruding, gnarly roots and rivers as if it never had done anything else. However, zie had also found a ruin, buried in the most inaccessible parts of the jungle, left behind by a long since dead, Mesoamerican civilization, and zie had rested there and simply contemplated and savoured the fascinating decay on this once so proud and powerful city.

Nothing could escape decomposition… and what was it that zie embodied, if not decomposition?

In short, zie kept the world hectically spinning. All this magnificent rebellion, this bubbling up of hatred and lust for destruction… all of this fed and strengthened zim, even though zie had to concede that things still didn’t go quite as far as zie would desire them to.

All the while zie kept the most jealous and fervent watch over Gabriel’s progress.

As one, zie and the taller one had stepped back – zie had looked up to him inquisitively, seeking belonging and orientation, but zie had found the same disorientation in his expression and gotten the bizarrely definitive and firm presentiment that whatever should happen, zie and he would never lose their link. What it should mean or how to think of it, zie had not had a clue back then… all zie had been able to testify to had been a solid, irrevocable sensation of connectedness.

Two more creatures had come into existence that way – clothed in crème-brown robes; their task was to feel and support, preserve and heal, Heart and Shield – and as soon as they had joined the four, which had been greeted by an unprecedented sensation of completion, of wholeness, the six first-born had formed a circle, holding one another by the hands, and made a vow that they would ever be faithful to one another and the responsibilities they were given.

Protect and secure – Muscle and Sword.

Manage and govern – Head and Crown.

Preserve and heal – Heart and Shield.

Their minds had brimmed with instructions and blueprints, with the rules they had to teach everyone and whose observation they had to oversee, with opposites like light and dark, good and evil, just and unjust, mild and ferocious.

Then, after six other groups of beings quite like them, but individually not comparably strong, had been called into existence – they were called angels, and these were their Choirs – the force which had given this initial push had lifted and retreated, and there had been silence in barren space. Silence that they, the original six, had to fill in accordance with the instructions they had been given.

So what had become of it? Of their mythical six-fold community? 

It was almost to be called laughable. Beelzebub had no regrets or nostalgia upon looking into the past – more a form of acrid sarcasm. How had zie ever been so pitifully idealist that zie had thought this had a chance? Preserve and heal. Why would you do that if it was so much more rewarding to uproot everything that didn’t perform as it should and watch something new grow from the failed experiment’s sooty remains? 

Surprisingly to zieself, zir master stroke in the present were none of the political protest movements zie spearheaded (out of the dark, that went without saying) and drove to escalation, hospitalized police people and incarcerated protesters. No, zir master stroke, the most promising chance for a future in which zie could with elated laughter force Gabriel and everything he stood for to his knees, were the occupants, those who knew zim as the small, black-clad lady. 

Their station had fallen to chaos in the meantime – in the first waves of their excitement the humans had knocked over shelves, defuncted machines, torn open packages and had stormed the offices on the first floor to – well, at first simply to devastate them as well, but some one or two of them had maintained that, using the information they could turn up there, they would be able to harm the big shots even more effectively. They had been left to it in the end – how could a demon know what Earth’s bureaucracy was able to achieve – and the others had returned to ransack the packages left lying around for anything that could be remotely useful. The stuff that was deemed useless was cast aside; the perverse and weird was at least good for a couple of laughs; and the useful belonged to who found it. 

Zie dropped in now and again, sunned in their admiration and affection, in their loose camaraderie and their contempt especially towards their bosses, and encouraged them in their rebellion, encouraged them in keeping the station under their control and letting every cog stay still. That was not a back-breaking piece of work; most of the time zir presence sufficed, zie didn’t even have to say a word or work a single miracle. 

These people were desperate. They had spent half a lifetime being higher-ups’ punching bags, helpless victims to power and administration. Beelzebub knew the one or the other thing about this, which was why zie cared so much about this operation’s success. 

The station’s owners had sent the police; this was a delicate situation. Tina had almost thrown herself down to her small lady as the officials had hammered at the entrance, sounding sirens, wielding truncheons and creaking through megaphones that it was over, that if they had any sense left in them they would surrender at the second, lay down their weapons and come out with their hands in the clouds. 

Panic seized the people; they ran around like ants without a queen and everyone seemed to have their own opinion as to how this situation should be handled. All of a sudden everyone remembered that they had families, animals, responsibilities, that they simply couldn’t die… 

“Ludicrous,” Beelzebub whispered to their minds. “Nobody will die. This is about power alone. Power over this place… power over you. If you allow them to intimidate you, how do you expect to get into possession of this power ever again? You have to withstand. You have to persist. You have to beat them down with all you can.” 

“But what are we supposed to do?” A fat man with spiky, black hair stared at zim with wet eyes. “Small lady – what are we supposed to do? They are stronger than we are. They have arms – guns, batons – maybe even tear gas! We have nothing but our fists.” 

“And our spirits.” This was Tina – Tina, faithful being, who was so wide open to Beelzebub’s influence. There was much anger in her without the demon being able to tell why or wherefore – but zie could work with anger alright. 

“They will not murder you.” Beelzebub’s voice was low and ominous. “They will not dare. Think of the picture it will paint of them! The armed forces who strike down simple citizens – unarmed people! – without mercy?” Zie chuckled. Some of the people grasped others’ hands; zie walked between them, hissing to them like the tempting snake. 

“You be like ants,” Beelzebub instructed them, walking among them not like an ant queen, but like a beetle, big, round and utterly alien, something completely different and infinitely more forceful, “One ant bite? One can live with that. It might sting a little, but not do too much harm. If you get bitten by a whole colony of ants though?” The grin on zir face felt feverishly uplifting. “Think of the poison, humans. Nobody will be able to shake that off.” 

“I have…” one of the smallest and scrawniest occupants spoke up, possessing a fitting voice as well as the irritating habit of chewing on lips, knuckles and fingernails until they bled, “… this here." 

There was a taser in his hand. 

The device buzzed and crackled from time to time, showing electric discharges as if in happy anticipation of what was to come. While the people let their glances shift from the little black box in the half-child’s hand to their fellows and back again, Lord Beelzebub sensed how canals and bridges formed between their minds, how their spirit hands reached out and grabbed hold of all the others’, how little explosions in their heads and souls made sparks fly, sparks that started a fire that spread irrevocably and reinforced their determination, their connection, their fever. 

A fever of supremacy… a fever maybe even of invulnerability. 

It sprang back to the minds of some other occupants that one of the other packets had contained a couple of cans of pepper spray, and some of the people started to scourge the discarded items for stuff that could be useful in a physical confrontation. Thereby, the people slowly built an arsenal of things that had partly been meant for usage as a weapon, but for the most part hadn’t, and of people who for the most part had never even contemplated having to defend their own lives with violence. But for the moment they were far off from doubts – far off from worry and fear.

“Fantastic,” Beelzebub breathed.


	26. III/8: Consequences

The days had rapidly passed them by… as well as the nights, and they had congealed to years, decades, centuries, long before humanity should develop their first calendar. The angels had laboured, unremittingly, with vigour, with commitment, with self-sacrifice, but also with questions, with compliance, but also with creative licence, though many had looked upon that less than favourably. And some angels, yes, a handful of them had reflected, and they weren’t ready to merely follow commands anymore. They had had questions.

What is it that we are labouring towards?

What is our goal?

What about this ‘Great Plan’ that we seemingly all have to buy into?

What is our advantage in pulling our weight here?

Will we be free one day?

What is us being ‘protectors of all life’ supposed to mean?

Cannot ‘all life’ amply protect itself?

Beelzebub had seen the one or the other thing, and even though zie had taken a certain liking to some of them, zie still hadn’t comprehended what was so special about them that the angels’ sole purpose and responsibility should be to keep them safe – even of themselves. Already early on zie had seen more use and thrill in taking things apart, burning them and throwing them away, also to see how nature would fill the holes. Zir twin brother – he more than anyone else – had of course noticed these… tendencies, zir odd little hobby, and tried to put a stop to it or to at least sweep it under the rug, push zie and zir activities off the radar. But he should go on trying to gain power over her… he would hear what part zie had to say about that, no worries about that.

Occasionally, extremely rarely, but still, zie tried to picture her twin’s face in the moment he must have received the news of his sister’s Fall… how exquisite.

Generally and on the surface, the six-fold community had followed their directives on fashioning space, the planets and the living beings and protecting all of it – with two weighty exceptions: zieself and Lucifer of the first-born choir, the Seraphim. Lucifer had, over time and under covers, assembled a congregation of angels whose opinions, reflections and conclusions were congruent with his. They had gathered under aliases and concealing themselves in animal forms – mostly reptiles, amphibians, insects, arachnids, beings that were consigned to exist in fantasies – and discussed how they would ideally slip away from under the control of the radiant ones who claimed command over them. Beelzebub zieself had only joined the group as two points had been guaranteed: one, enough angels had accumulated that a revolution was possible. Two, Lucifer had granted zim power only second to his own as soon as the revolution had been fought and all of them would have achieved what was their due.

And he had betrayed zim.

Lilith, you dreadful shrew…

But zie had had to live with her – and with him – and furthermore with this ‘Great Plan’ they had strived to get rid of after the revolution had unravelled and they had lost and been banished, subdued by Michael’s agonizing light. This all would change now since Beelzebub had zir own sheep and dogs zie could sic upon any opponent.

Only four police people had come to smoke them out. That was a mistake.

The picture of the boy, firing his taser to one of the police people’s neck – to the biggest, most boarish one’s – and made him dance in convulsive jolts went through the whole globe’s news departments. A grainy and blurry photograph, yes, since it hailed from a car dash cam, the surveillance cameras at the building’s roof or one of the occupant’s phones, but the motive was discernible. It went into each newspaper and every television screen, and it inspired imitators – workshops, industrial factories, big storage facilities, plantations, mines, post stations, garbage disposal units. Around the globe, people left the places that society would have them at and threw those out who presumed the ability to tell them what to do, kept the places under their control and refused to be swayed by threats or bribery. The reports from this one station helped people comprehend that nothing – nothing at all, indeed – could even slow a person down if only their conviction and support of an idea were strong and fervent enough and if that person succeeded in gathering about him creatures who believed in the same thing and were willing to best everyone for it. Beelzebub visited them all, but revealed zieself to nobody. It was much more alluring to have them come to zim…

Tina’s colleagues threw themselves into battle with all the force of their sub-par weaponry, but exorbitant faith and fervour. Two of the police people didn’t even make it so far as to be able to grab their guns; the fourth one managed that, but her scruples to shoot at crudely armed civilians had her devoured by the furious hive mind Beelzebub had coaxed them into.

The four police people went under: the one who still convulsed in the mud, foaming at his mouth, and the three others, beaten, kicked, threshed around and incapacitated with pepper spray.

Beelzebub had an idea as zie watched the still light-headed humans as they bent over the unconscious ones and took their guns and ammunition. It was so obvious… quiet as a mouse, zie sneaked closer, bending over shoulders and spines, searching ears and brains and minds and whispered two simple words.

_Kill them._

It was the closest thing to a command zie allowed zieself at the moment.

How much further could one, after all, drive some other creature into the abyss?

And in the middle of zir enthusiasm for the idea, zie had, for the first time since zie had taken these creatures under zir glassy wings, to accept a decided refusal.

_What do you mean, you refuse? It is the only logical conclusion to this. **Kill. Them.** We must send a message to all those who assume they have a right to control you._

_But does this not suffice as a message?_

_We cannot simply…_

_We cannot kill human beings._

_We cannot commit murder…_

_What would, then, make us any different from them?_

Beelzebub could barely stifle a grumble. _It is your right_ , zie coaxed on, behind their backs and brushing their heads like a light breeze. _What use do you still have for their rules – their laws? Throw them away, they only stifle you. They can cannot judge you anymore. And even if they still had any authority: you would act in self-defence, they attacked you first._

_No matter – I am not a murderer._

_There must be other ways to make ourselves known… ways without bloodshed._

_Ways with only a few broken bones and torn nerves_ , Beelzebub mocked, indicating the policeman who still was torn about by electric spasms. Zie could feel cold rage building up – this was not what zie had elevated these people for. Not why they had been chosen.

_Yes. Ways with negotiations and possibly a bit of blackmail, if there’s no other possibility._

_Ways without the loss of human life…_

Beelzebub kept zir silence for a moment or two – then, however, zie stepped back and spread zir arms while the buzzing around zim kept getting louder. _Do whatever you please_ , that gesture said, and under it was unwilling, furious pride, _but do only dare to call on me again once you are prepared to comply. I know what the best for you is – for us – and for this place, our plan. As long as you doubt me, there is nothing I can do for you._

With this, Beelzebub sank into the ground.

\---------------------------------------------------------

Michael and Uriel, restless, met up in Heaven after their separate scouting missions. Michael had already returned to the machine room and studied the clipboard Chamuel had entrusted to her as Uriel entered; Raphael stood next to a window, first staring into the far-off, but then showing a broad grin as he laid eyes upon his twin sister, however run-down she may look, and Chamuel brooded and stood watch next to his commander, mostly staring roughly in the direction of her shoulder.

“Well?” Raphael was the first one to speak, which prompted Michael to put the clipboard away and her, as well as Chamuel to glance up, “Did you find her – what is Ms. Demon Princess up to?”

The golden Archangel nodded, massaging her forehead and trying her best to neglect her brother’s impertinence. “I did find Beelzebub – but I am not quite certain what her goal is.”

“Report back. In an orderly fashion if you do not mind,” Michael commanded.

Uriel complied. Michael nodded as if lost in thought and, in return, gave her own report on what she had observed around Gabriel.

“Sounds disconcerting to me.” Raphael dragged his foot over the floor, seemingly feeling for a ridge or rift where obviously none existed. “Who knows what might be up with their heads…”

“As much as I dislike saying so,” Michael opined, shooting Raphael a searing sideways glance, “in this case I am in accord with your brother, my heart. It appears these two usurp tremendous amounts of power on Earth, use unknowing beings for their goals, and this time there is no indication of orders from above. I feel we must do something to put a halt to their pursuits.”

Silence.

Finally, Chamuel cleared his throat. “What… course of action would you suggest, revered Archangels? The Powers and the Angels of Punishment stand at attention, and to your disposal without fail – I wanted you to be aware of that.”

“I am aware, Chamuel.” Michael sounded unresolved. “I reckon all of us know what must be done…”

“Michael!” Raphael pulled a revolted face. “Just listen to yourself! You cannot in all honesty propose we destroy them. Not… not them. They’re the closest thing to family we ever had, do you want to deny this?”

“Lucifer is the closest thing I have to family,” Michael retorted grimly, drenched in ominous sense of purpose. Her sitting position still signalled relaxation, but her eyes spoke of tautness and pugnacity. “Must I remind you of what happened to him by these hands?”

“And must I,” Raphael bitterly countered, attempting with all his might to have the pale Archangel’s stubbornness be met with its like, “remind you of the toll this… action… took on you, back then as you approached me in order to…”

“I suspect, then, that you have a superior idea?” Michael wasn’t angry yet; merely aggravated. She fully turned toward the Healer without standing up and fixed him with a sharp glance. “Go ahead, Raphael, speak. I do welcome suggestions if you have any to put forth.”

Appeasement, however, came from a corner nobody would have expected it from. “Perhaps,” Uriel ventured cagily, “perhaps it would be enough to merely detain him… to have him locked up for some time, until his… his wits have been gathered about him once more. Until he has seen the light again and one can talk sense into him.”

Michael measured her with an eyebrow raised in irritated disbelief. _Et tu, my Heart,_ she appeared to ask, even if her beloved's words obviously slowed her down and made her reconsider. Possibly it had been expectable with some consideration: Heart and Shield, after all.

Raphael gave sarcastic laughter; he leant back against the window he’d just stared out of. “Sure!” he mock-conceded, faking merriment, “There’s nothing better for finding oneself and one’s mental health than a few thousand years of solitary confinement. Worked wonders for me!”

The pale Archangel, as if she hadn’t heard him at all, finally rose and approached Uriel. Chamuel’s glance followed each of her steps. “We have sworn oaths to preserve law and order,” she argued, utterly unrepentantly, full of trust in her own righteousness. “If any force or person endangers it, we must put a stop to it by any means necessary. Do you deny it?”

“There must be another way,” Uriel pleaded, shaking her head. “A kinder way. These are exactly the old ways… the way in which Gabriel would have had us act.”

Michael kept her silence. This appeared to make sense to her; Chamuel and Raphael were reduced to blankly glance back and forth between the military officers.

In the end, Michael yielded with a sigh. “Perchance you are right. So let us try it your way, my Heart – I mean your way, Uriel and Raphael. Beelzebub does not worry me greatly in this respect… we will likely find something that may bind and neutralize her close by, after all, we are trained to pacify the likes of her. But in Gabriel’s case… we might have need of something infernal in order to detain him. Something powerfully infernal.”

“And someone,” Uriel added, “who is able to manipulate it.”

A pause unfurled. The officers stared into one another’s eyes; Raphael in his corner visibly was lost as to what was going on, and Chamuel struggled to comprehend half the words his officers had spoken.

As Michael raised her voice again, a hint of a smile graced her lips. “I think… maybe, in this special case, it would not be all that wrong to have a demon on our side.”

Uriel, who understood on the spot, answered, “Or an angel, close enough to his demonic side to be able to withstand the infernal.”


	27. III/9: Conference

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the delay in posting; I had IT-problems yesterday.  
> On to the chapter. I hope you'll enjoy.

“So this brings you to us?”

He had asked them to enter. Of course he had; what other stupid thing should Aziraphale have done? It was just the kind of person he was.

Sure, Aziraphale had shot him a remorseful, yeah, almost contrite look as the geese had entered his shop in front of him – _do understand, dear, all the fears, you know about that, and this sounds hideously serious; you do not have to remain, I beg you, dear, just get in the car and drive away if this upsets you so_ – but in the end the angel had known just as well as he that he wouldn’t do anything remotely like that. Having Aziraphle lead a discussion with at least two of the however-many heads behind the plan of snuffing out their existences – and alone? Over Crowley’s cold discorporated coil. So he had snorted and pulled a disgruntled face, but had nevertheless passed his friend by and entered the room between the dusty shelves which were getting stared at by Michael and Uriel in a mixture of admiration and failure to comprehend.

Aziraphale had offered seats and refreshments – the latter they had declined, but the former was the reason why Michael, legs sophisticatedly crossed, sat opposite them in the easy chair as she closed her tale. Uriel had taken position behind the chair, her fingers interlocked, and stared into the far-off; she hadn’t even made a move to sit. Crowley had slumped onto the couch next to the eagerly listening Aziraphale and rested his aching head into his fingertips. How was he supposed to survive that day without at least three bottles of schnapps…

Yes, bless it, in some ways what Michael had droned was in some ways alarming. In part it was also nothing completely new to Crowley. Yet his reluctance to let himself be caught up in Heaven-Hell-business ever again was almost physical.

“Indeed,” Michael confirmed over her folded hands. One of her brows was gingerly arched. “We come to ask for your assistance – possibly considering the circumstances especially yours, Crowley.” She gave him a solemn nod.

The demon, lifting his head somewhat and staring at the pale Archangel blankly, as if she had bellowed at him out of nowhere, felt as if an icy-cold hand were reaching into his mouth and down his throat.

He gagged.

“No,” was the first word he felt himself able to produce.

“Crowley, please think…” Aziraphale pleaded, but it was as if his friend scarcely even heard him.

“Why must it be me, of all demons? I’m just the smallest of cogs in the motor of eternity. I didn’t even fall so much as… saunter vaguely downwards.”

“Is that so,” Uriel asked, grim, sluggish disdain in her voice and still not looking at anyone directly. Crowley stared at her with murderous intent. “And yet, Crowley, or rather Rahtiel, would you not say that through all these years, through all these millennia, you have been right where you belonged? With the betrayers, the deserters – those who have surrendered and never stopped surrendering?”

“Archangel!" Aziraphale, exasperated, rushed to his friend’s defence, but no-one seemed to pay him much mind. At least, Uriel’s darkly reproachful glance now searched and found her interlocutor’s face. “With all due respect, this is obviously not the time, nor the place, nor the tone…”

Crowley merely hissed.

“Think, Virtue,” Uriel continued, her voice deep and raspy, “remember, and be honest to yourself. You have betrayed Heaven by your disobedience and respectlessness. You were part of the rebellion; do you want to deny this? After this, you have betrayed Hell through lacklustre service – I may call it another flight. Humanity - did you ever really care about them, or were they merely who made all the... physical things that delighted you so, but no more? Even the stars and constellations that you helped build and arrange were abandoned by you. Did you even look back as you left? Is there anything – anything in the three worlds and beyond – that you have been faithful to? That you have vowed, and continued to hold sacred to this day? One thing!”

Crowley ground his teeth, cramped his fingers around each other, and diverted his glance just for a fraction of a second – the merest flicker of a moment – towards Aziraphale, and pictures revived in his head, pictures of midnight past. Comforting, warming, tender, encouraging pictures. He didn’t even turn his head; the only diversion he allowed himself was a swift displacement of the small pupils behind his tinted glasses. But Uriel saw. Oh, she saw very well.

“Ah,” she muttered under a grin.

“This will do for now, my Heart,” Michael smoothed the situation out, and Uriel obeyed, taking half a step backward and lowering her glance to the sitting Archangel. The Archangels kept eye contact for some precious moments, and worlds seemed to be moving between them. The perception made Crowley feel downright nauseous; it didn't make any sense, not the sense of a snowman in Hell. How could it work, two such icebergs having something warm, tender, compassionate?

Aziraphale in turn used the moment of silence and not being watched to cast a catch-up glance at Crowley. “Are you feeling alright?” he asked in a hushed, oppressed whisper, but Crowley averted his glance with a mere shrug. He didn’t want to – ah, he couldn’t deal with this on top of everything. Michael’s demands and Uriel’s accusations were enough for him to digest, more than enough, and he couldn’t add Aziraphales heart-warming compassion to that already explosive pile.

 _She has no right_ , he told himself – _this vulture has no right to judge me. Whatever she may say – it bears no weight_.

“Just go to… to Hastur or Dagon, or any of the princes, or whoever might still be out there and is more powerful than me,” he argued feebly, could hardly conceal the fact that he wanted no more than to have these fowl out of his field of vision. He didn’t need any reminder of what he had done, what he had been doomed to be, and least of all any obligation to deal with this in the future.

“Dagon appears to have vanished,” Michael said calmly. “And Hastur…”

Uriel chortled. “Hastur’s a clown.”

Several centuries of fury and disbelief, all too deeply impressed into the fabric of his very being, seemed to build up, go by and crumble in Crowley’s face as he stared at the golden Archangel. Aziraphale beside him seemed to feel his anger seethe – he reached aside as if to grip his hand, calmly and calmingly, but Crowley was already beyond all civil moderateness. “A CLOWN?” he hissed, his face a furious grimace, unable to avoid his movements gaining a snake-like quality as he started forward in his seat and glared at the Golden one, “You call Hasssssstur, Duke of Hell, a fucking clown – Hasssssstur who almossssst killed me? Multiple timessssssss!”

“Why should your incompetence influence my assessment?” Uriel retorted, her voice frustratingly unchanged, and once more it was Michael who went between the two parties with no more than a lifted hand and a facial expression almost oozing frustration. Crowley couldn’t precisely tell what it was, though something about Archangel Michael’s presence was cold and commandeering enough that even he, long-time fallen angel, couldn’t help but feeling himself subject to and oppressed by it. Come to think of it, even Gabriel who had been his distant boss for a time had never managed this effect on him.

“Peace now, my Heart,” Michael said softly, “keep your aggression in check just this one time, I beseech you. Please be peaceful too, Crowley. Should we address you by Rahtiel again – for old times’ sake?”

“Not if you have any further uses planned for your tongue,” Crowley threatened. Someone must have checked his files before coming… how good to know nothing went to waste up there.

“Dear, please,” Aziraphale chimed in, and this time, Crowley unwillingly stepped down. Pressing his lips together and linking his arms in front of his chest, he slumped against the couch’s backrest – should the angels talk by themselves if they were so utterly keen on ‘peace’, he didn’t care anymore. Everything in him drowned in frustration and fury.

Aziraphale in turn addressed the Archangels again; Crowley limited himself to keeping watch, but had to use force in order to not shush his friend up at any given situation. As a purely precautionary measure, of course. “There must be another possibility,” the angel entered the negotiations, “One that must not necessarily interrupt our well-earned, this much I tell you, well-earned peace and quiet. Neither Crowley nor I, personally, have much interest in the thought of getting entangled in these unfortunate Heaven-and-Hell-matters any time soon, you see.”

“There are no Heaven-and-Hell-matters anymore,” Uriel replied.

“There is always another possibility,” Michael muttered ominously, her expression as gentle and accessible as she could manage while her voice was still grave and sullen, “but this, we have found, is the least hazardous for everyone involved. The variant that… can be accomplished without risk of another war which would endanger human lives as well as the peace of this planet.”

“Don’t get that,” Crowley interrupted her snappishly. “Last time we were concerned with that kind of thing you couldn’t wait to get your sword bloody.”

Michael blinked at him twice or thrice – only then, as the demon’s underlying proposition slowly unmurked to her, she softly tilted her head. “That situation was different,” she claimed.

“Different!” Crowley spat out, throwing his arms up in exasperation. Now would you take a good, long look at that! This poultry lied through its teeth and didn’t even break stride doing so! “That heavenly slang for ‘I’m a miserable liar’?”

“What exactly would these… these differences be, now?” Aziraphale, conversely, showed openness to dialog – not without having cast an utterly pleading look at his demonic friend.

“Well, for the first, I had reason to believe that the proceedings were good and necessary, since so devised by a higher, wiser power,” the pale Archangel explained unmoved, “and secondly, only the angels and the demons – those who this pertained to, and who were trained for it – should have fought. The humans would have been taken by the Riders beforehand.”

If that was how she termed it. Crowley could see a repulsed quiver shake his friend – it seemed in their view of the world he and Michael still differed greatly, which was at least a spark of hope. “You still would have killed… killed them all, or have them be killed,” the bookseller muttered.

Michael blinked ostentatiously – she seemed honestly baffled. “Merely bodies would have been destroyed,” she argued. Crowley felt the impulse to wrench her neck just so she would stop tainting this room with her chill. “Meatsuits. Intrinsically worthless matter. In my opinion they should indeed be happy to be freed from them.”

“But you _do_ know that human lives depend on their ‘meatsuits,’ yes?” The quotation marks were sharply audible in Crowley’s diction.

“Quite possibly,” Michael waved this away, “their lives. But not their existences. Death is merely a transition, a step along the way, shedding of unnecessary weight – what is important is the soul this matter shields, and that is almost impossible to destroy. You should be aware of this, Crowley.”

Silence.

“To return to the matter at hand… in contrast to the last time I am now, without the Almighty’s voice to which I am bound in faith and servitude, obliged to use my own conscience to distinguish right and wrong. And I feel it is utterly wrong to make the humans fight our war. Or, more to the point: I believe it is wrong for one angel to reach for the Almighty’s power and possibilities. Therefore I planned to detain the two agitators before they can get to open combat, the one or the other way. Without bloodshed, if at all possible. Nobody – well, nobody more or less innocent would have been endangered. We believed that considering your views you would at least contemplate supporting our strategy, but since this is obviously not the case, I reckon we should now…” She made as if to rise and nodded in Uriel’s general direction – and the Golden one turned immediately as if to leave.

_Yes, blessit, pack up and turn fucking tail finally! Get the blessed Heaven out of here! **Piss. Off.** If you think I would fall for…_

“Wait.”

Aziraphale. Who else?

Michael stiffened in the midst of a movement and cast Aziraphale a puzzled glance.

Crowley was mere seconds away from burying his face in his hands and melting the sunglasses off in rage. A quiet, clandestine canal of conversation unfolded between him and the angel as Aziraphale turned his broad-cheeked, pleading face toward him.

_Don’t you **dare** , Aziraphale._

_But, dear, this is about…_

_I’ve heard them, bless to high Heaven! But I don’t trust them and I cannot fathom why you would._

_You cannot deny the rather unsavoury events of the past half year._

Crowley ground his teeth. Point for Aziraphale; times were unsettling and, dare he say, barbarous. And there should be somebody who looked into this and put a halt to it, even more if the turtleneck and the fly monstrosity were at the bottom of this, but why did the fools always have to be them?

_I want to be completely forthright with you, dear… I think I won’t be able to watch this all with my hands folded in my lap. Now that we have the possibility to really, really move something, with powerful allies at our side…_

The demon broke off his connection to Aziraphale, and felt his horror and annoyance be subverted and tainted by a golden hue of affection. How was it possible to simultaneously want to hug and strangle him until his eyeballs dangled out of their sockets by the nerve? How could it be that the desire to caress him down the neck directly coexisted with the desire to tear his head off his shoulders? How could one single creature be so… so stupid! He deserved every hit and scratch he could catch on this mission, and yet the demon could not bring himself to let him go by himself.

Aziraphale’s hand slowly shifted into his field of vision, in careful proximity to his own, and timidly put itself to rest on his wrist. _I am disconsolate, Crowley_ , his eyes said as the demon turned to look into them once more.

 _I know_ , Crowley retorted drily. _I know, and I hate you for it, and I know you’re aware of it. But you’re my friend and I stand by what that means, in every blessed circumstance. Now let us finish this mess before I revert to being Crawly and hospitalize one of them._


	28. III/10: An Old Friend

With a kind of slack, half-hearted smile, Aziraphale addressed the intruders. His hand kept its position. “I would help,” he announced.

“So you will carry the Hellfire for us?” Uriel inquired, and now Aziraphale audibly gulped, averting his glance and blushing this shade of pale pinkish-red that Crowley knew so very well.

_Hah! Blessed be they, got it in one._

“I… I say, well, I should actually rather, I guess, rather… not…” angel stammered.

“What of it?” Michael asked imperiously. “Why are you stalling? We are aware it cannot hurt you. Uriel is eyewitness to it.”

“Yes, yes… that is true, very true indeed, but…”

“It’s just…” Crowley attempted to rush to his friend’s aid, but Michael shushed him up with a simple gesture. In these moments, something moved around the stoic Archangel’s mouth corners – a twitch that Crowley could not quite place, that he could not define as either a budding smile, a frown, or possibly a completely different facial expression.

“Speak freely, Aziraphale,” she breathed.

Aziraphale, however, didn’t speak. It wasn’t for failure to try, though. He merely stuttered incomprehensible syllables, twiddled his thumbs nervously, grasped and let go of his pocket watch’s chain, and stared away into the bookshop’s darkest corner.

Then Michael’s head abruptly whirled around to Crowley, and her gaze was like two icy-cold needles that stung into his eyeballs, cleanly penetrating the tinted glasses. The demon felt the urge to flinch back or to give an offensive hiss, but his muscles didn’t heed any command. “Crowley,” she grunted, “answer on the spot – what was the insult Hastur used to greet me in Hell?”

Crowley felt the weirdest sensation of hypnotism gazing into the pale Archangel’s metallic eyes. The lie he had wanted to spit out in a knee-jerk reaction twisted and obstructed his vocal tract – even that imbecile, he had wanted to say, would have been able to cook up some kind of verbal depravity, but he was unable to produce a sound. Something inflicted pressure on his larynx – something he couldn’t grab or deflect, just could tell that it was inhumanely cold.

 _Lies, lies, lies_ , Michael’s glance scolded – _do not dare pronounce a falsehood._

“And you, Aziraphale,” Uriel approached the angel whose hand cramped anxiously around Crowley’s arm, forcefully, it should be torturous, but hardly registered compared to the brace around his neck, “who was it that permitted the messenger demon to hit you?”

_(Sandalphon Sandalphon Sandalphon tell her it was Sandalphon…)_

Aziraphale gave a choking sound and shook his head fitfully before he forced himself to answer, “How… how could I ever have… have forgotten that, it was… yourself…”

_Oh Aziraphale you stupid bastard…_

At least the smothering brace around Crowley’s respiratory system now loosened, and he fell forward, massaging his throat. Upon lifting his glance he could see that Uriel had retreated behind Michael’s shoulder in disorientation; the latter, however, had grasped her adjutant’s hand, certainly warmer than her own, and pressed it against her chest in a stranglehold. The twitching and jolting around her lips had worsened – her glance jerked from angel to demon and back again, scrutinizing both haphazardly – and finally, as she seemed to have internalized the implications entirely, she threw her head back and laughed riotously.

“Bizarre,” “grotesque,” “spine-chilling” – those were adjectives that couldn’t even begin to describe the sheer wrongness, abstrusity of what Archangel Michael’s laughter felt and sounded like. It was violently distressing, earth-shattering, nerve-tearing, bone-rattling, nauseating, brain-exploding. It was an earthquake deep inside Crowley’s ribcage. It was a sound that had never been meant to be, by all rights an _impossible_ sound – like a mountain’s song, a flower’s shriek, the scratching and knocking of electricity, droning and grumbling of waves, scraping and croaking of wind, harsh rustling of pebbles and dead, decomposing bones. Crowley jammed his teeth onto each other – violently – he felt as if his teeth’s very substance, from the adamantine down to the nerve, was wasting and crumbling away under these sonic waves. They resounded in his skull, making his brain screech in agony and his intestines clench, and it would – _not – **stop!**_ Aziraphale’s fingers clenched around his arm, seemingly trying to compress it as far as possible, and somewhere in the back of his head he could hear the angel scream.

Michael herself looked exhausted as the laughter ebbed away, as she lowered her head and shook it softly. Finally, pressure and pain dropped off the listeners and left them breathless, shaken, dilapidated; Crowley let out a rustling breath, feeling his insides expand to their usual size. Aziraphale appeared deathly pale, his face was covered in a thin sheen of frosty sweat.

"I understand,” the pale Archangel finally muttered, more to herself than anyone, “ah… I do understand how you managed… ah, yes. Very astute indeed… in this case, Aziraphale, have my sincere gratitude, but I will not permit you to take needless risks in my service.”

“I’ll do it,” Crowley mumbled – his teeth still felt soft and feeble in his gums, and he as a whole as if he were coming off a particularly nasty hallucinogenic trip. “Don’t assume I trust you or that I did it for any of you, but… I’ll do it.”

Michael merely nodded – nodded her acceptance as well as her restrained satisfaction. “I would never ask for your trust – nor your dedication to us personally.”

“At least one thing we’re on the same page for,” Crowley grumbled.

“In this case,” Uriel spoke up again, giving Aziraphale a sign to rise which he obeyed immediately, just a little jelly-legged. His old training made itself known there… “I have an old friend here that I think should return into your possession.” With a snap a sword materialized in her hand – one that bore at least a passing similarity to the weapon Crowley had seen him handle on the airbase.

This, Crowley was well aware, didn’t bode well.

Michael withdrew, her glance almost humbly turned towards the carpet.

Uriel smiled as she turned the weapon blade-down and held it out to the bookseller, hilt first. “Go ahead. It is yours and good as new.”

Aziraphale’s eyes widened.

This time, though, Crowley was faster. He jerked up and dashed the sword from the golden Archangel’s hand – only a further miracle made it land safely on a low table beside. “Now listen, poultry,” he snapped, puffing himself up as much as he was able to and stabbing at her chest with his forefinger, “I have no darn idea what you think you are to just saunter in here and try to… recruit us or whatever… but I tell you one thing, I tell you…”

“Dear?”

Crowley shot Aziraphale an incited-inquiring-warning look.

“Would it pain you a tremendous deal to let me argue for myself?”

Crowley lowered first his arm, then his head, finally gave a helpless sound and stepped aside. The boding this did grew worse and worse, also because he thought he could tell from Aziraphale’s tone that he was grappling with staying calm and sane, perhaps also quite out of his right frame of mind after listening to Archangel Michael laugh. But well, he was right nevertheless; who was Crowley to deny his friend his right to free speech?

The bookseller now advanced, clearing his throat. “Uriel – Michael – I believe you fail to understand,” he defended himself, both hands raised to his chest and his voice only the slightest hint off-balance, “I cannot… I do not do this anymore. It is over, that. My time as a warrior is long and far behind me. Ancient history, you might say. Do you have any concept of when I last…” – he broke off. At least Crowley remembered in this moment that the last time Aziraphale had held a sword wasn’t that far in the past at all, and the situation had only been marginally more bearable than this one. He just had handled it like the primal man…

“Drivel!” Uriel hissed, having produced another sword out of thin air and made as if to attack, just one, quick and graceful lunge; Crowley felt a gasp rise in his windpipe, but Aziraphale evaded the attack almost equally fleet-footedly, with a flutter of his coattails. The tip of the sword whooshed through the air just a finger’s breadth from his bow tie.

Crowley noticed – feverishly asking himself whether his friend might realize it as well – that Aziraphale’s fingers almost automatically moved towards the sword’s hilt. _Don’t, Aziraphale_ , he thought, keeping himself laboriously from biting his knuckles with excitement, _don’t let them bullshit you like that. Don’t let them engross you…_

The sword was merely a lump of metal now, but once it imbibed angel's energy and will to fight…

Aziraphale made as if to turn towards his friend, but Uriel didn’t allow them to make eye contact. All Crowley could see was how the angels’ glances locked onto each other. It was exasperating – Crowley felt locked out, like the mere visitor in a circus who could do nothing but watch helplessly while they pushed the metal ring through the sedated dancing bear’s nose.

He couldn’t just let this happen! All honour to Aziraphale’s right to self-defence, but if all he planned to do was stand there and gape and wait as they forced him under their wings…

“Angel…” Crowley heard his own voice venture, tense and aggravated, but this was probably the straw that broke the camel’s back.

“Defend yourself,” Uriel ordered, swinging the sword for Aziraphale’s neck and chest, but this time, the angel was prepared. His reaching for the sword appeared even to the demon who was standing some steps away to be the most natural thing in the world: thoughtless, pure force of instinct and nature and – what was worst – destiny; instantly flames began to crackle around the metal, and the bookseller blocked Uriel’s weapon without fail.

It seemed to make utter sense, seemed to be devised by an inescapable force; it seemed so fucking right and true and inevitable. That was the worst thing about it all.

The Golden one grinned.

Crowley barely resisted the urge to claw his fingers into his cheeks and give a frustrated cry. His disappointment and disillusionment knew no bounds, no matter how easy the whole thing was on the eyes – the fleeting, graceful movements of the fighters, the whirl of hair, arms, clothing, the unnatural light-footedness with which they crossed half the bookshop without leaving a smudge or dent, without disturbing a book or a wire or some haphazardly forgotten piece of paper…

Never before had he seen Aziraphale like this.

Well, except for that one time…

Once Aziraphale tripped in an evasion, stumbled back against a desk and dislodged a lamp in his frantic pursuit of balance; the bulb and shade broke, and the destitute technology gave a nasty hiss and biting stench. “This was your own doing!” Uriel thundered, “Watch your footwork, recruit!”

And she enjoyed this. Oh yeah, she enjoyed herself tremendously, it was clearly written in her face.

Why was Crowley unable to deny the feeling that it was just the same for Aziraphale?

The angel pushed himself off the tabletop and jumped back into combat.

Michael, who had in the meantime settled down again, crossing her legs with disarming sophistication, watched the sparring with mediocre satisfaction. The demon close to her tried his dam- ah, blessedest to keep his consternation and helplessness to himself, but his dark glasses couldn’t hide him from Michael. She could read his stance, and that he could not conceal. “You do not know Aziraphale in this way, am I right, Crowley?”

Crowley didn’t answer. He rubbed his forehead, gulped heavily and turned his head in a way that allowed him to not look at anyone.

“It is the only way I have ever known him,” Michael continued matter-of-factly. The look Crowley shot her for this, wishing she might just shut up, was hot as Hell, but she scarcely seemed to take note. “I taught him before Lucifer fell.”

“Was made to fall,” Crowley corrected throatily – dragging him along, not that anyone cared – but Michael ignored him.

“He was not a bad soldier. Also not an exceptionally good one, but passable. I would be quite surprised if he managed to even scratch Uriel… be that as it may. In these times he was known by Azfiel. Nobody knows why he changed his name.”

Crowley bit down on his lower lip, combed through his hair in irritation and averted his glance again. He could explain this tidbit, but this was no episode of his existence he liked to revisit. Apart from that, his mind was full of pictures: pictures of Aziraphale who had just learnt to use his own head instead of Heaven’s guidelines, whom he had just pushed far enough that he accepted a hug now and then – who had held him with one wing just precious little hours ago, Someone be blessed! – as a ruthless, relentless soldier, armed to the teeth and without any scruples. Pictures of an Aziraphale who would harden from within, take up this angelic superiority, arrogance, cold and grimness – pictures of glances from high up, with imperious hard-heartedness.

Still… was there not something to it, to watching Aziraphale, an angel he had always taken for rather inflexible, whirl around with this preternatural dexterity, pure concentration on his face, the eyes grey ice, every muscle tense?

Crowley trembled.


	29. III/11: Respect

“There appear to be many things you do not know about your friend,” Michael muttered without glancing away from the fighters who were merely visible as a blur of jackets, hair, flames and voices.

Crowley rolled his eyes and snorted. “Things you of all people would know, sure, Mike,” he grunted, “since it’s been you who’s spent the past centuries with him. Oh, you’ve _taught_ him! You made him a thoughtless, reckless fighting machine. Grand! Amazing job there! And, may one know how long that’s past now? Ten thousand years?”

“Close, I reckon,” Archangel Michael confirmed, oblivious or uncaring towards the demon's scorn, “but I have not given up my angelic nature. Therefore, I have access to impressions you have locked out.”

“For instance?” he asked, disgruntled-challenging. Did he really have to tolerate this kind of clucking from this better chicken?

“For instance the fact that he knows,” she ventured.

Crowley grumbled inarticulate sound, grumbled in exasperation and disgust. He had no interest anymore in playing charades – not anymore, not now, not with the half bottle of champagne that bubbled in his system. “Tell me something new,” he grunted without even brushing Michael with a look, “first, he’s not a complete idiot, and second none of this here had worked if he hadn’t _known_ , as you put it.” Hadn’t been easy, either…

For a couple of moments there was silence – silence merely broken by the clang of metal on metal, the thudding of two pairs of shoes, Uriel’s harsh voice and the whoosh and crackle of flames.

“Impressive,” the pale Archangel finally commented, but Crowley didn’t react. He merely shrugged – his, no, _their_ arrangements were none of this cow’s business. Something in him wanted to needle her a bit more – rub her face in her erring – but the fact that this here could transpire without more grave defiance of his angelic friend was hard enough on his stomach that he needn’t hear more of this stuck-up battle axe’s world view on top. They should just pack up and go so he could talk some sense into Aziraphale before this here escalated.

Or was this, again, something that he was simply able to feel, like the ‘flashes of love’ down at Tadfield? That these vultures had no ulterior motives?

“You could come out with it by now,” Michael said, her voice monotonous and far away, as if she hardly took any interest in what she talked about.

Crowley pulled a face. “You could remove your nose from my business by now. Just a suggestion, Mike. I have no qualms to knock it bloody should…”

He had wanted to finish his threat, but at this moment, the pale Archangel turned to face him. Perfect, colourless, deep-set eyes nearly crucified him, and Crowley jerked back, raising one hand as if to try protecting himself in vain.

 _Do not go too far_ , this look admonished him. _I came in peace and in order to negotiate. I put old resentments to rest in order to meet you and your friend eye to eye. But if you insist on forgetting who wields the most power – if you insist on provoking me or attacking my deputy, I promise you I will demonstrate to you why it was me who back in the day lead the celestial military._

“I do follow,” her vocal folds, quite conversely, put forward, and Crowley learnt to not trust Michael’s words and tone, especially if her eyes expressed a contrasting feeling, “and I will never mention it again. But in turn, I want you to understand something: namely that I aspire to have peace, but that peace can only work in combination with respect. I would deeply regret having to teach you respect completely anew, demon Crowley. Have I been… comprehensible?”

The demon felt the impulse to grasp her placidity out of the air, construct a rope out of it and strangle the Archangel with it. But he kept his peace, merely nodded with a dry and constricted throat and reinforced his determination to kidnap Aziraphale to Alpha Centauri.

He merely wondered now whether that was far enough…

Michael in the meantime addressed herself to the sparring again, ending it with a clap of her hands. Aziraphale and Uriel lowered their weapons, and Crowley caught himself in detesting the smile around his friend’s lips – every single wrinkle of it. What might it mean? How very dare he? He didn’t seem changed – not anymore, now that the sword was calm at his side – and yet the demon knew that a seedling had fallen, and what might bloom of it unsettled him greatly.

“Adequate for a restarter,” she stated her verdict, extending a hand for Uriel who followed the beckoning gesture, not without having first bowed to Aziraphale and received an equal reciprocation. Crowley was angered a tad by the fact that he could sense no insidiousness in the deputy’s aura. There _had_ to be something fishy about them! “Good to see. Yet I think Uriel and I have seen enough – and sowed enough discord for one day. We will go on our ways now. Thank you for your hospitality, Aziraphale.”

“Do you have a place to stay?” the angel burst out, and Crowley could only shake at the idea of what he meant to imply. What, should they set up shop here? Only over his cold dead empty husk!

“We do, in fact,” Uriel answered, “since Chamuel and some other loyal angels have remained in Heaven and kept it clean it is open to us. Fare thee well, Aziraphale… Crowley.”

Well, at least she had gotten it through her head to not use his angel name.

With which the high-ranking angels took their leave, banally walking out the front door, ignoring the doorbell’s jingle-jangle – at last the demon was able to breathe deep again. He ran his fingers through his hair and fixed his attention on Aziraphale, who seemed absent-minded and yet a little like somebody steadily coming off a galloping high.

“What in Hell’s name did that…” Crowley grumbled.

Aziraphale didn’t answer. He merely stared wistfully at the cold steel still in his hand.

“I cannot believe you let them bullshit you like that!” the demon increased his vehemence as the angel made no move to his defence. This passivity infuriated Crowley.

Everything seemed to have sponged up the abhorrent smell of these vultures, and had Crowley been less slothful or mindful of Aziraphale’s private space he would have immediately started dousing everything these shrews had touched with detergent. And this blazing lump of steel… ah, that belonged into a museum! Into a safe box in the deepest depths of an old cellar that no-one dared navigate and where nobody would ever see or touch it again. A pity that Crowley couldn’t predict how it would react to being thrown into the gape of a volcano – he would have chanced the experiment right away. “Is it just me, angel, or is it explicitly clear what they want to do? All they’re looking out to do is they want to have you back in that cage up there, and you…”

“Have a little faith, Crowley,” Aziraphale asked, finally turning away from the extinguished sword and making as if to stash it away, “after all, I presume there is no reason they would wish us any harm… since, you see, there is no Heaven anymore.”

A pause unfurled.

“Besides, you have seen the reports on… telley vision? Your international net? I rather think Gabriel and Beelzebub pose a greater danger than they do.”

“Not if we manage to stay out of their way! Or if we can find a better place before…”

“So, if I understand you quite correctly, you advocate we continue our existence as perpetual fugitives?” Aziraphale’s diction was still kind and loving, but had taken on this sharp undertone of his he used when he mused Crowley hadn’t thought something through, yet did not like to express it in this many words. Mostly Crowley soon saw the angel’s points as valid – but here? No, this allowed for no other interpretation, this was two-faced, insidious, hideous, and it seemed the angels were much better liars than he would have ever taken them for.

Someday, the angel’s voice implied, Earth would leave no place to hide anymore – and then? The cosmos? Somehow the demon doubted his friend would be very happy among the stars, not in the long term. No sushi restaurants there, for one. No cakes with marmalade inside, so tender as to melt on the tongue. Not a single scrap of a book…

Still. Still, blessed thrice! He would rather lead an existence of everlasting restlessness than one with an ice statue next to him…

“Have ‘em take care of their shit for themselves!” Crowley lashed out. His determination to not grasp the angel’s shoulders and shake some bitterly needed sense into him dwindled by the moment. “They are the ones telling everyone what glorious fighters they are. Gabriel hasn’t touched a sword in his life, I know, I used to work for that… that prick! They need no Hellfire to get him under control, should stop kicking up a blessed fuss, they should. They have no, absolutely no need of us in their plans!”

“I already explained to you why I want to help,” Aziraphale said quietly but firmly. There should be something to be done against this serenity and unwaveringness. There wasn’t even a way to suitably quarrel with this bastard. “I was meant to be protecting living things – and I will protect them. I will shield those who I deem to be most in need of it: these creatures here and their planet. For their sake we also must – and I would bet this hasn’t even occurred to you yet, dear – steer and assuage Michael’s and Uriel’s powers. Who can foresee what a toll it would take on our fabulous planet if they unleashed their full fury over it?”

“Those two now as well!” Crowley felt his anger grow enormous. “We can hardly match one of them, and now all four…”

Finally, there was uncertainty in the angel’s demeanour, shivering, reservation. “I am not fully clear on that aspect myself, as of yet. I would have to fib to say I wasn’t bothered by this. But you of all demons,” the smile he shot his friend was utterly disarming, “you must understand how it is to simply be unable to allow something to happen. After all we went through last year…”

Crowley wanted to oppose him – with anything, be petulant, be dismissive, be at least sassy and flippant as a teenager, but the knot that swelled at the base of his throat didn’t allow for it. Sometimes he dearly regretted the absence of rules and guidelines that clearly defined what they could and couldn’t say to each other. How to react if a statement like that was thrown at your incredulous face? How could one, confronted with such a statement, reconcile the need of appearing untouched and sublime with the reluctance to hurt one’s interlocutor, however obviously and fatally he might be in the wrong? How could it be possible that one creature, and be he a demon twenty times, could entertain such an explosive emotional mixture as that of frustration, barely contained fury and relentless fondness?

Snorting and shaking his head, he shoved Aziraphale out of his way and stormed out of the bookshop, just into fresh air, just get some exercise or drive the frustrations off. He sensed Aziraphale’s sombre, tear-heavy, regretful glance biting in the back of his neck, but could not overcome his pride and self-esteem in order to turn back.

He wanted to expose himself to this? Well, then he should see how he would fare all by himself. Crowley would not be driven to join this wild hunt.


	30. III/12: A Little Look Into Demonic Nature

Duke Hastur had fallen upon better times, at least he thought he remembered better times, as he re-entered Hell. He had a veritable odyssey in his feet – a never-ending journey around the globe, one barely avoided discorporation chasing the next. He couldn’t and wouldn’t understand where this lack of dedication to their Master and his ends came from. He wanted to be scandalized by his peers’ insistence to also completely disregard his rank as a Duke, but after the fourth or fifth encounter which he had just barely escaped with his fleshly shell intact, this had ceased to be much of an object for him. What did rank and file and dignity mean if one was ceaselessly subject to such baseless, crude acts of violence and mortification?

If only Ligur were still there…

The only ones whose refusal had come in halfway civil terms had been Mammon and Moloch and their associate Berith – they had limited themselves to ridiculing Hastur and turning him away while most other demons had chased him away with physical force, maybe even striving to end him.

Dagon, the first one he had addressed due to her geographical proximity, had made earnest moves to strangle him. Then the poultry had arrived… that had left him wondering. Maybe it was even more urgent than he had assumed to set the Master free again so he could make his plans in pushing these fowl back into their pens.

Hastur had only barely made an escape from the iron hooves of the infernal creature that Duke Eligos called his steed, as well as the lance of the regal demon.

Marquise Marchosias had spat a pillar of fire at him – his coat was still blackened and scorched where it had hit, and he had quickly retreated before his hair including the toad had been able to catch fire.

King Paimon had hypnotized him with music and dance – before the Duke had known what was happening to him, the clang of trumpets, cymbals, bells and flutes had filled his whole skull, ah, his whole being, and he had danced until both legs had hurt and burnt up to the hips, until his breath had been a stream of lava in his mouth and nose, and still hadn’t been able to stop, _more, more, keep dancing_ , until the world had been enveloped in pitch-darkness. He had woken up several days later, standing up in a hole in the desert, his body a single bruise, buried in fine sand up to the neck and shrieking for all it was worth.

Countess Naamah, the prophetess, having settled down in a swamp, had paralyzed him in a way that had almost reduced him to alligator feed.

Marquis Forneus, Duchess Crocell and Duke Vepar, bundling their powers, had created a maelstrom so incapacitating that Hastur had almost drowned in it – the Duke was not the best of swimmers, detested water in fact (clean water, at least), and the three maritime demons had made the shortest of work of the boat he had used to seek them out. The saltwater still stung his gums and tongue, no matter what he did, he wasn’t able to rid himself of the taste.

Marquise Samigina, laughing like a hyena, had cast a spell at him – a spell that, to this day, made him suffer of an itching, proliferating eczema, leaking pus and stinking water and blood.

Marquis Phenex had attempted to envelop him in a storm of flames – only the Duke’s ability to sink into the ground had saved him from being roasted alive.

Prince Sitri the frenzied, the insane, had merely attacked him with teeth and claws and continuously shapeshifting…

Now it was enough. Hastur had seen enough. All these refusals had laid out an unmistakable message, and the Duke had decided he didn’t need any further surveying to understand he was told ‘no’. This brought him no step further as to why nobody wanted to help, but what did he care? He hadn’t been sent out to understand, merely to seek.

At first nobody was present behind the net that still glimmered and whispered in Enochian that excruciated every demonic ear, but as Hastur announced his presence by shouting, something stirred. Lucifer prodded closer, about six foot seven inches of concentrated, gurgling hatred, balled fists and tense muscles, the face, bathed in celestial light, a blood-thirsty grimace – and Hastur only had the news that he effectively brought.

“You look as if they stoned you, demon,” the Ruler of the Fallen grumbled.

“It isn’t my fault,” the Duke offered, lifting hands that were only clad in rags of what had formerly been gloves, “the demons, they… they refuse to heed your call, Master. I have no idea why…”

“Because they are ungrateful, narcissistic, self-serving pieces of rubbish, that’s why!” Lucifer hissed, and flakes of steam sprayed from his flat nose, “Did you never ask yourself why I had to keep them - you under my thumb sadistically? Why Beelzebub, that… that repellent little pest led you as uncompromisingly and cruelly as she did? Now you see! I should almost be glad to not be saddled with you uncontrollable riffraff anymore, that much I tell you! And _you_ – have you made any more effort than to approach the demons and say a cute little prithee, you good-for-nothing, stinking boil on the face of eternity?”

Hastur said nothing.

“Did you IN ALL HONESTY assume they would do ANYTHING one would not force them to with whiplash and glowing embers?”

Hastur said nothing. His mouth opened and closed, but his tongue was unable to shape a single word.

**“ARE YOU DIFFERENT IN ANY WAY?”**

Hastur said nothing, but retreated half a step. Lucifer’s voice was booming enough to make small splinters of the ceiling break away and rain down on the Duke.

**_“ANSWER, YOU REVOLTING SINKHOLE OF A DEMON!”_ **

With which Lucifer, so caught in breathless wrath that he must have lost the ability to think straight for a moment, cast another miracle against the net. This had three effects.

One, Lilith came running out of the back room in which the prisoners passed their time until their good-for-nothing servant returned – her face was full of alarm initially, but she comprehended the situation swiftly and put a hand on Lucifer’s shoulder to push him back. Hastur didn't remember ever having had any quarrell with the Lady...

Two, the net bulged outward for a moment or two as if it wanted to make the miracle ricochet back onto its worker, and for an about equal span of time Hastur imagined what it would be like to witness Lucifer commit accidental suicide in this highly undignified way. A leopard couldn’t change its spots after all, and for most demons, the sadism they nurtured was just as strong as their self-preservation instinct.

Three, Hastur turned tail and fled as fast as demonly possible.

Hastur ran and ran, accompanied by nothing but the drilling, searing sensation of his own screwup, the echoes of his steps on Hell’s uneven flooring and his own coughs and pants. His heartbeat raced, the lungs hurt, but he could not even pause, the prickling at his neck, the paranoia didn’t allow him to let up. Never did it seem that there was enough space between himself and his Master, the task he had not fulfilled to his satisfaction. Only as he had spied a reinforced door to his left, lunged into the room behind it and thrown it close behind himself he allowed himself to breathe.

At least until a clearing of a throat made him jump.

With a smothered shriek, lifting his hands to his mouth, the Duke looked up.

On crane’s legs, soundlessly apart from the clicks of his claws, Marquis Naberius had approached. The eyes in one of his three crane’s heads, sitting on elongated, slender necks upon his anthropomorphic body, measured the Duke pejoratively, while the other two were almost longingly turned towards the empty shelves and motley piles of files and folders on a desk at the other side of the room. In his scrawny arms he carried some further files. Hastur was completely nonplussed. Some demons apart from him had returned to Hell, after all? Or was Naberius the only one?

“Duke Hastur,” the Marquis’ hoarse voice croaked, “May one ask what you wish to find down here?”

“I could…” Hastur gulped. “Could ask you the bloody same thing! What’re you doing here while our Master’s trapped and Earth…”

Naberius gave a disinterested snort. His beak clattered, censorious and derogatory. “I’m putting things in order,” he explained snappishly, “since nobody save me seems to care that we leave a navigable Hell behind in our wake… a Hell in which things have their order and purpose. Earth? Bah. Lucifer? I am only interested in him as far as he were a hindrance to me doing my job, Hastur, and I haven’t seen him for ages. Hasn’t he gone to Earth with everybody else to make a battlefield of it?”

In short terms, Hastur explained how things were a few feet below their level; Naberius nodded calmly with one of his heads, but showed no real involvement, before turning back to work. “Is that so,” he muttered, heaving the files he carried onto an empty shelf which met this assault with wobbling and groaning, “An unfortunate turn of events for him, I guess. Well, I am distressed to say so, but in this case I cannot be of assistance. I don’t have the time to right every of Lucifer’s blunders, not to speak of power over a whole net of celestial incantations…” He quivered; his feathers rustled and bristled for a short while before smoothing out against his body again. “It will take a few centuries to bring anything resembling a system into this mess here. One wonders how many of my persuasion we would have needed to establish a working system from the start…”

Naberius turned away demonstratively, addressing himself to his labour.

Since Hastur hadn’t the faintest inkling of what he should do other than this, he followed the Marquis like a sheepdog – a sheepdog being truly under weather – over to the table holding the unordered papers and gathered some of them to himself.

The three-headed one gave him a taxing look, but there didn’t seem anything pertinent he seemed to have to say against Hastur’s help. “Over there, to the ones I just filed away,” he commanded, “we are only in the first century after we were driven out. Don’t drop anything. Treat the equipment gently, the shelves and cabinets here are completely substandard, and that’s putting it politely. And don’t dare getting wishy-washy with me.”


	31. IV/1: Voices I

After some time those who had torn through the offices – three people – returned, and their faces glowed with anticipation.

“Guys? Guys, gather round, there’s something we’ve got to tell you. Something amazing, if I say so myself.”

Shuffling of feet, whispers, understated laughter.

“What’ve we missed?”

“What’s the matter, what’s all that important?”

“I swear, if it is about the pizza delivery again…”

Braying laughter.

“No, no, much better. Come down first and listen. We’ve been digging around up there, in the accounting department, among the files and computers…”

“And who made you chief hacker of our operation?”

“D’you think I’m in this line of work because I like it so much?” Sarcasm was thick in the speaker’s voice. “I happen to do it for being able to pay my computer science course load, and as it happens I have learned the one or the other trick, in the lecture hall as well as beside. I can’t go into much detail here, that would take us absolutely nowhere, but…” she cleared her throat, “… I really think we can build something new here. Something benefitting us alone.”

Silence.

“What… exactly are you on about?”

“It’s not all squeaky clean – but what of what we did the last few months was?”

“Our daily food order!”

Renewed laughter.

“And even that we funded out of company reserves…”

“Earnestly, I’m surprised they didn’t send more police after what we did to those four…”

“Ey – maybe they simply all piss their pants…”

“Burke!”

Laughter.

“Joking aside, I don’t think so. All I can assume is there was the one or the other policeperson in solidarity with us…”

“Or there’s just too much general chaos about and nobody knows what to do…”

“Calm now, guys, let us finish what we have to say! So, as I say, we’re not a hundred per cent on the legal side of things. But we… I think if we are sly, we can get away with it. Julio here has the one or the other bank and savings account – emergency precautions, side canals, divorces and all that, doesn’t concern us much. One of those can certainly be re-consecrated as a group account for us…”

A whisper ran through the crowd – Julio had nodded dutifully.

“… as I said – and as soon as we have that in dry folds and the necessary paperwork is done…”

“I can take care of that, forging official documents is not as hard as it sounds. Besides, we’re bound to have blueprints upstairs in the offices.”

“… yeah, sure – as soon as that is done, I mean the hacks and the paperwork, so things look as if stuff here had always been belonging to, and working for us. After we have got all that out of the way, we can start working again. All together, I mean, hand in hand, one for the other. We can make this system here work for us alone – I'm not saying it will be easy, or that it's a sure-fire thing, or a way to wealth for anybody, I'm saying we should at least try, and the situation outside with so many people following our lead works in our advantage. At least we have a stronger position in a negotiation. And every single cent that comes in will be divided, fair and square.”

Brief silence. Then:

“We will need… a council. PR-people and salespeople addressing the outside world.”

“Certainly, certainly, and we will recruit them from everybody in here. I personally, I think we shouldn’t leave anyone on one position too long – we should switch about every few weeks so nobody feels underprivileged.”

“And how do you imagine anyone to build mastery in their field like that?”

“True, true – there are many points of view on this, much is left to be discussed and planned, but guys, don’t get irate right now. We’re just at the beginning – we have all the time in the world to puzzle this out.”

“Let us cling together, dear people, for one time. We can make a giant step, all of us as one. Let’s try.”

“Yet, what about…”

“About what?”

“About the small lady…”

Brief silence, undercut by weak whispering.

“Tina… oh Tina, darling. Everybody here knows how sacred you hold the lady – goodness, I feel the same about her. I want to hug her to me every time I see her, and I am positive she made a huge contribution to us now being able to stand here and even debate this. We have much to be grateful for, darling, nobody denies that, but somehow we must move on. We cannot remain here, standing in the ashes of something that we reject in this form and refuse to construct something we _do_ want.”

“She’s right, guys. We must move on!”

“And it’s not as if she weren’t welcome anymore. Let her join our venture, she will be as one of us. But as Diana said – we cannot remain in this turmoil here forever. One day we will need new order.”

“Yes. That’s right, I... I do understand. It just feels so… it feels shabby to first use her energy and vigour and then…”

“I do understand.” Gentle, considerate, warm. “We all do, we sympathize. This is why we will gladly accept her should she come. She will be welcome – even if I, if I want to be completely honest, find her talk about chaos and dissolving elites and oppression and breaking everything that wants to hold you down a tad obsessive. There can’t be anything in that direction but aimless violence and anarchy. Still, we will accept her with open arms should she choose to return.”

“Of course. Definitely, yes. But for the first, the most important thing is that we think of ourselves.” The hacker’s voice hovered above them all, forcefully, officially. “We have to make steps to assuage this disturbance and find our way back into a normal, structured, maybe even halfway legal life. Won’t be easy as far as I can say, but we have to try.”

This day was one of hope for all people present.


	32. IV/2: Voices 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear reader,  
> Please be warned of a mention of eye-related violence in this chapter.  
> Be safe, and please take care of yourself.

“Zachary?” Finally an opportunity to talk to the boy alone, away from his parents or the usurper…

“Zachary.” Her voice grew ever more affectionate, homely, but also livid. “Zachary, sweetling, can you hear me?”

“Y-yes, Irene, I hear you.” Strenuous, choppy diction, shivering, a restless, involuntary tremor. The boy’s voice was thin, worn-out, brittle and colourless.

“Thank God… how are you feeling, sweetling? Are you fine? May I…” Meaningful fade.

“Yes. Please embrace me. It is… everything is so cold in me. Cold and smooth and empty. Never before as clean, but everything wide and empty. Nothing to touch. Nothing to see. No movement. Only memory, as if behind glass. If I screamed it would… echo…” Dry, hollow sniffling.

“Oh my poor boy.” A barely audible murmur.

“It is not bad.” Increased decisiveness – and still it sounded a bit like a pleading question. Like someone reaching out for a helping hand. “It – it cannot be bad, Irene, coming from him. It is… a blessing. Yes. A gift. His way of unshackling me. He has opened a doorway into paradise in his unerring wisdom and clemency – has made me worthy. I am as an angel now, as an angel, as unbesmirched and unbound and…” Any further words were cut off by violent gagging.

Pause.

“He has pulled it out. I know not what it was, but it hunkered in me, rooted profoundly, and made me dark and desirous and… and evil and murky, and now it has vanished. As so many weeds… uprooted. I am not mixed and not dark anymore. I am pure white, and I…” The boy retched.

“Zachary!”

“I don’t know how long I will be able to withstand this.”

“Zachary, please, you will throw up any moment from…”

The boy’s words now flowed faster. More erratically. A tirade like a rainstorm. “I am so radiant, so blindingly white inside, and it should make me happy, and it does make me happy, it does, but it also chokes the air out of me, and I don’t think I can endure it.” Huffing, snorting, hysterical chuckling. “Sin, sin, sin! Where is the sin? How may I avoid it? How can I keep it away from me? I see your sin, Irene, I see everyone’s sin, and it makes me want to vomit because I feel it as if it burned holes in me, as a scorched hole in an altar cloth, as a droplet of blood in the clearest stream. Am I guilty, Irene? Am I soiled? Am I wicked? I cannot be wicked, not despicable in Heaven’s eyes – no more!

I need this whiteness now, as of snow, as of clouds, pure as the elysian fields, and I cannot allow it to be besmirched. I cannot look anyone in the eye, humans, humanity appals me, living beings disgust me, I only see the evil in them and the foulness – the thunder behind their eyes – they are evil and dull and simple, bull-headed, pig-hearted, indecisive, indescribable, weak, weak, weak to themselves and their own wretched desires – oh his eyes, they pierce and they hound me, gouge them out, make me have some peace and quiet at last – I am afraid of it, Irene, I don’t want it, but I need it, I cannot allow it to be soiled, but it covers, it smothers me, and sometimes I feel so very clean on the inside that I don’t even want to breathe so that the oxygen cannot…” the boy broke off with a moan, and the woman, leaning over him, gave an exhausted cry.

Rapid nearing steps through the half-high grass. “What is going on? Irene, Zachary, in God’s heavenly name, what has happened?”

“Just look at him!” Hopelessness in Irene’s words. “Father, he is completely out of it. We need to do something – get him to a doctor – Zachary, where are your parents?”

“They say their praise and thanks to the benefactor.” Unsettling singsong. “Glory to Him in Heaven and him who He sent to lift my soul up among the angels…”

“That is enough.” The priest sounded restless. “Give me your telephone, Zachary – we must call one of your friends, somebody you trust so they can take you away from here, get you to a doctor, back into real life…”

“I do not have it anymore.” Giggling singsong. “It would just… lead me back into this world of stumbling and knee-deep mud. I cannot return. Nevermore. I have been cleansed by unprecedented grace, a boon of mercy, I must be grateful, I must remain spotless. I owe it to…” the remainder of the sentence dissolved into murmurs and grunts and hisses.

“Gabriel.” Irene hissed, somewhere between anger and disbelief. “All this brainwasher’s fault. We have to get rid of him, somehow.”

Calming tones from the priest. “I know, Irene, I know… but it would not be as easy as all that. Many here seem to trust him…”

“Because they don’t see or don’t want to see what he does to us – what he did to Zachary!”

“Be that as it may – Irene, dear daughter, what is it that you plan to do?”

“I don’t know.” Disgruntled panting. “Yet. But I will stop to just stand by and watch right this moment. What else has to happen for us to notice we’re being played? Instrumentalized? Incited! That someone wants to drive us apart and tries to make us afraid of… of shadows and monsters and devils, for whatever Godforsaken reason!”

“I repeat,” the priest’s voice was low and sombre, “what are you planning to do?”

“For the first, stop obeying him blindly. The rest I will make up as I go along.”


	33. IV/3: Voices 3

A man-shaped creature sat on a park bench, staring straight ahead wordlessly. For up to half an hour, nothing happened. Then there were steps on the gravel path, and a second man-shaped creature flanked over the back of the bench and slumped down next to the first.

Silence endured.

“Am I right in assuming you don’t have anything left to tell me, now?”

“Quite the contrary. But I wanted to leave the lead to you.”

“Don’t even get the idea in your head that I would apologize.”

“Fair enough, I’m certain.”

“Won’t apologize to them, either.”

“Oh, I do not think they would expect you to. They are distinctly aware of the more… let’s say troublesome things that they have done to deserve our mistrust and loathing.”

“Only you don’t loathe them, do you?”

“You may call it predisposition.”

“Predisposition?”

“I am an angel, dear. My whole being opposes loathing and mistrust.”

“You’re out of your mind.”

“Quite conceivably.”

Silence.

Tweeting of birds, quacking of ducks, screaming and laughter of playing children, conversation in different languages and different volumes, the rattle of skateboards and bicycles on the uneven, stony ground. The rustle of newspapers and leaves. Now and again the mellow wind swishing through branches…

“You know, sometimes I wonder whether you do that on purpose.”

“Do what on purpose?”

“Stumbling into peril every second step as if you were blind to it.”

“Sometimes, you see, doing the right thing entails putting yourself in harm’s way. At least somewhat.”

A groan. “Spare me the holier-than-thou-charades, angel. I’m fed up with that. This here stopped being about ‘the right thing’ eras ago.”

“I presume you think because I, let’s say broke off my employment with upstairs I am less the angel I have been all the time?”

“No, thrice blessed!” Frustration. Incredulity. Unrest. “And I begin to think you do that on purpose, too! You’ve got a do-gooder syndrome is what you’ve got.”

“That is an intelligent word, dear boy. Are you positive you never even opened a book?”

“Har-har, angel. I’m in throes of side-splitting laughter here.” There was a touch of amusement in his voice. “I’m just thinking to myself, where will all that lead?”

“Where do you assume it would, or should, lead?”

“Now you’re my psychologist too or what? Bless, if I want to have my speech analysed, I’ll record it and send it off to Cambridge.”

“I am utterly and completely serious. I see you worry, and I want to help you with that, but I cannot if you just keep on letting me run against your walls.”

Silence.

This thrice-blessed boundlessness that allowed them to simply say whatever might be on their minds…

“You know, dear, occasionally I ponder this is because you have no trust in me.”

“May I – May I remind you of the Bastille, angel? The Nazis? Shadwell, bless to high Heaven? You’re a danger magnet! And too stupid to see it! Either you cannot take care of yourself or you just refuse to think one step ahead. One meagre step! You stumble from one trap to the next and you still won’t stop to be so unreasonably… foolishly nice to everyone! And then you come here and tell me I shouldn’t worry, you… you blockhead?”

Pause.

“And this time as well, this time, what these two…”

“I will admit they threw me off my guard.” Pensiveness and anxiousness. “That they… unfairly resuscitated old instincts and overpowered my mind. For a short time. But this will not happen to me again. Next time I will be wise to it, and know to counteract it.”

“How can you be certain?”

“I have faith in… well, in things. The world. Fate. I begin to have faith in me.”

“Is that so.”

“Uriel and Michael are quite honest about this.”

“The mere thought of it.”

“I would ask you to come along and make up your own mind, but…”

“I will hardly be able to inhibit that, will I, since I already, foolhardy as I am, agreed on joining them in their suicide mission.”

“So you will keep true to your word?” Joyful positiveness, optimism.

“Have I ever been a demon untrue to his word?”

“You know, dear, I knew from the very beginning that there was very much honour…”

“If you finish that sentence…”

“Then what, exactly?” Still joyful, but now also disarmingly challenging.

Silence. Clenched teeth, inarticulate sounds of annoyance, heartbeats.

“Better you tell me how this shitshow is bound to go on before I change my mind.”

“We planned to meet up in two days’ time to go retrieve some Hellfire… you would be essential for that plan, for, I believe, obvious reasons.”

Silence.

“Always makes one overjoyed to know one’s needed.”


	34. IV/4: Voices 4

A woman-shaped creature stood on a mountain ridge; her glance glided ponderingly into nothingness. Her hand rested against a tree, she stood a little askew, but still securely on the boulders. Silence. Only now and then the wind whistled, songbirds tweeted or birds of prey screeched; the settlement in the valley was too far off as to make any sound carry up to her.

Suddenly a rustle, nigh imperceivable steps from behind; the creature turned toward the mountain lioness who had settled next to her and lifted her hand as if to put it between the big cat’s round ears.

“It is good that you found me. Do you not want to step out of the fur?”

A quiet grumble. The lioness morphed, her front paws left the ground, the hind legs elongated and straightened, and as she had taken human shape, the first one’s hand lay tenderly at the nape of her neck.

Silence.

“What leads you to up here?”

“My need for silence and being undisturbed, I reckon. Trying to clear my head. My fondness for looking at things from above. So much lies behind us… so much we must still do. So much I am not enthusiastic about.”

“But you will still push through?”

“I will always bow to necessity and responsibility.”

“Of course.”

A quiet chuckle. Renewed silence.

Breathing.

“Did you observe anything remarkable?”

“Gabriel has left his premises.” Clearing of a throat. “I could not find out why or where he headed to, but he appeared to be… I don’t know. Beside himself.”

“Beside himself how? Explain.”

Hesitation. A couple of false starts before, “I’m not certain. It wasn’t… not directly anger. Or: not exclusively anger. Maybe rather something like… disappointment? Maybe some defiance? Some bemoaning, some wishing, a bit of helplessness? I would have had to get nearer to know for sure.”

“That is disconcerting.” Slowly, ponderously. “Perhaps there is less time than I presupposed.”

“You think we must already take action?”

Silence.

“Neither Aziraphale nor Crowley are ready!”

“I know. In an emergency we must make our moves without them; I will not endanger them frivolously. Though it is a pity indeed. Aziraphale has made admirable progress these last days.”

“He must have been a good agent back then.”

“I discharged him with all honours from my troops as he made his way to Eden. But this is meaningless now – Chamuel will have to watch Gabriel more intently. Relay to him the order to immediately inform us of any of his movements.”

The second nodded and wanted to turn away, but, “Uriel?”

“General?”

“Do not do it just yet. Stay with me a while longer.”

The second conceded.

Silence.

“Do you want to hear an odd thing that has been on my mind, my Heart?”

“I want to hear about anything that’s on your mind.”

“I begin taking a peculiar liking to this place. The wind. The sun. The smells. These… bizarre creatures that abound on this planet. Have you ever felt rain on your skin? It is… I lack the words to describe it. It is cold and at the same time…” Pause. Hesitation. “Homely, I think. I do not have the proper words for it. Do you think I am going insane?”

“Aren’t we all going a little insane, now that we spend so much time in this alien environment?”

“Or now that we find out more about the art of this alien environment?”

“Yes.” A short, amused pause. “Yes, that as well.”

Silence.

“All I hope is that it will not make me a traitor.”

“Betraying whom or what?”

A reasonable question.

The first didn’t answer it.


	35. V/1: Retreadings

With some regularity Gabriel invited his underlings to judgment. This was an opportunity to make confessions, ease one’s conscience and be cleansed from inside out as well as to have disputes that arose between humans settled by the higher power. In the end, it was an essential process on the humans’ path toward more cleanliness and acceptability in front of the Lord’s eyes – and also one the Archangel had imagined he would enjoy a good deal more.

The boy Zachary he mostly kept where he could see him – as clean as he made the boy’s innermost, as aware he was of the steadily looming danger of the weak human upturning everything again by getting caught in sin’s grasp. He noticed that Zachary’s health seemed to be deteriorating these past days, that he mostly huddled into a corner and twitched and mumbled erratic, meaningless words, curling up into himself, and it dawned on the silvery Archangel that humans did not respond all too well to being receptacles of a pure white angelic soul, but that was only on the fringes of his mind. They would have to get used to it. In the world Gabriel planned this to be, there was no room for anything but pure white angelic souls.

His progress with the city’s authorities was unnervingly sluggish – he was in eager mail-exchange with the mayor’s office, mostly dictating letters to his little priestly helper which he hammered into his black, buzzing case. But these – _politicians_ – steadfastly refused to yield and comprehend what Gabriel did for all of them, and they refused to grant him the protection and legitimacy he knew he would depend on before he could expand.

The developments on the clerical sector, however, were more promising: whereas the pope still was coy to accept Gabriel’s deeds and plans as legitimate and following sacred rules, many of the leaders of small dioceses and communities approached him, in person or per mail, to inquire details of his vision or actions. Gabriel was tired and annoyed by the small crumbs the world threw him to chew on, denying him the major steps he so desperately needed, but he struggled for each spark of optimism and normalcy, for his conviction that sooner or later the authorities, those who were really in charge on his junk heap, could not refuse the logic and beauty of his goals.

If it weren’t for this all-devouring impatience… and humanity.

Humanity bedazzled and exasperated him in equal measure. At times they wasted his time with utter banalities they were unable to find an accord on or that made them do horrendous things (once he had been saddled with an uncouth, nagging youth who was accusing another youth, who of course would have nothing of it, of having rubbed industrial paints into his house cat’s fur…), and then at other times they recounted grave misdeeds like so many trivialities. Crimes against honour, honesty and faith, marital, familial, professional faithfulness; treachery, deviousness, lies, general lack of good manners.

Gabriel never sat down when he judged his people; he much preferred mobility. So he mostly rounded quarrelling parties having come to his table and casting obscenities at each other like a prowling cat. If the angels had been such a cantankerous, meddlesome bunch, Gabriel mostly thought wistfully, he wouldn’t have made a toe’s breadth of progress in the centuries of his, and their, existence. Not that he overly had to establish his rule over the humans – that was not the problem, mostly – but what divided them from the angels was their lack of the essential knowledge of when they simply had to shut up and obey, when a discussion about the rights and wrongs, the ins and outs of things simply wasn’t fruitful. The angels had been less likely to be distracted to immobility by tiny details.

The angels had been _unified_. There had been no petty squabble between them…

Mostly, the Archangel tried to subtly make the humans take care of their own petty problems – most of them only needed a little shove in the right direction, since most humans, thankfully, had the urge to at least pretend they were in some way able to deal with their own lots in life – but occasionally, him righting the situations himself with his superior knowledge and outlook wasn’t to be circumvented. There were matters in which his celestial authority was just indispensable. Thieveries, grievous bodily harm, violation or destruction of personal possessions, violation of contracts and agreements, threats, disagreements over the necessary work of one for the others.

He was the organizer; he was in charge. He needed to shoulder the responsibility. (Once again.) He had to ascertain that this community remained a community, that the stains and imperfections slowly were bleached out of this fabric so it, one day, might be immaculate. His hands held all the threads, he had all authority, was to be held accountable for all. And it had felt better once.

The memory of Sariel refused to fade.

With an irritated headshake, he tried to evict the image of her irreverent smiling face from his mind. There were so many more important things he had to address himself to.

With utter might, the Archangel forced his mind back to the case at hand – banal enough to make Gabriel wish to bash his own brains in with a hammer. The last ones he was to judge today were a mother and daughter. A rather boisterous, chubby, unreasonable young girl whose hunger for life certainly exceeded her capacity for good sense and logic; her mother, getting wrinkly already, as chubby as her daughter and showing wavy, greyish-white hair, whose facial expression had gone from pleading to incomprehensive to aggravated within the trial, visibly was unable to rein her in.

No angel had ever occupied his precious time with such _balderdash_!

In moments like these, Gabriel, almost in a melancholy mood, reminisced trials like Aziraphale’s whose verdict had been so unmistakably on the nose that not even a blind angel could have claimed to have not seen it. It had saved them so much hassle, nerves and time to just pass sentence on him in absentia, since – which other verdict should they ever have come to? Who would have denied his treachery would have either been brainless or a turncoat themselves.

However, this didn’t work here. Far too many small details seemed to influence any step these better monkeys took; they seemed haphazard to Gabriel in a degree and a multitude of ways that made his head spin.

“I don’t get why that’s so much of a problem…”

“Why? Are you serious, girl?”

“… and why you must drag me in front of _him_ with it!”

The daughter human's nod indicated the Archangel, and her eyes were blazing – indeed they were full of resentment and fury. Gabriel met her gaze with only a mere twitch of his lips – no matter how often he told them, it seemed nobody here could grasp his real identity and comprehend the authority that came with it.

“Child. Dear. I only want what’s best for you!”

“Then why cannot we talk this out among ourselves? Privately? Why do we need this marionette between us in order to discuss my future?”

Gabriel remained silent. All these voices echoed in his ear canal, all these unending, unmotivated and pointless acts of evil and disproportionate retribution, the hissing and nagging and quarrelling and the enjoyment of the evil that befell others, and the silvery Archangel lacked the words to describe how intensely this baseness and mediocrity and crudeness insulted his very soul.

Those were the beings he was chosen – no, he was destined to work with?

Even _demons_ were easier to handle!

The mother pinched her nose, squinting shortly before she, extending her arms to her daughter beseechingly, brought up another argument, “You cannot just… just throw everything away, dear. We have saved up… and apart from that, you will need a good education if you want to build something for yourself.”

“Mom! Listen to yourself talk! I won’t be peddling drugs or join the mafia or some sect or some such or… or be a stripper for God’s sake! I just want to drop out of school to do what is important to me”.

“Children must honour their parents,” Gabriel muttered ominously from the background, “those who first brought them into this world, this existence.”

_Sariel…_

The daughter whirled around to him. “Oh you go stuff it – nobody asked you!” Her voice was sharp-edged and decisive; Gabriel merely lifted a brow, nonplussed by so much spiritedness, but the girl had already turned away.

She continued, seeking eye contact to her mother, “Mom, all I want is to work at becoming an artist – I want to be an artist. From the bottom of my heart. I want to paint and photograph and sculpt and… and maybe all at once or something completely different, who knows? I want to draw comics and spray graffiti and maybe do some performance art with random passers-by. I want to shoot short films! Publish a zine or two with friends and acquaintances and strangers! I want to go out and see the world, as it is for real, not through a screen in a stuffy old classroom. I know the risk I’m taking, and…”

“But kid!” The mother’s voice devolved into begging again. “You are only seventeen!”

“I am seventeen and know what I want to do with my life!”

This obstinacy, this refusal to budge even an inch, even against his better judgment. This resoluteness and fortitude, this utter will to resist everything at all… Gabriel hid his hands behind his broad back so nobody might see how nervously he was balling his fists. He knew this… knew it all too well. Just the one who this had been about back then had directed her impudence at far more than her immortal Mother, and she had also found a way through. Or she hadn’t… dependent on the respective point of view.

_Sariel, you… why won’t you just get out of my recollections?_

“I am seventeen and able to make my own decisions – I don’t know why that’s so hard for you to get through your head, Mom!”

“What I fail to _get through my head_ is that you undermine the whole foundation for a pleasant life we have laid for you! What if it doesn’t work, kid? What if you remain sitting at the curb with nothing but wasted time and wasted money?”

“Then it was an experiment, and it failed, and I can still get a job at Tesco’s for all I care! Maybe your pleasant life is not, and will never be for me. Mom, what kind of life will this be if I cannot even get the chance to live it the way it suits me?”

Enough. More than enough… Gabriel lifted both of his hands as a sign for this to stop, and mother (expectantly) as well as daughter (visibly disgruntled) as well as the whole congregation turned to face him, falling into deep, pressing silence.

It should not be – he could not let it happen. Not again.

Somebody tried to steal away here, to swindle their way out of a responsibility, against the wishes of a benevolent and self-sacrificing authority, cowardly and wretched, like Sariel had been, and like that harpy Lilith, and she had managed to get herself killed in her pursuit of… whatever it might have been; but quite unlike Sariel’s case, Gabriel was present now to close up the traitor’s escape route.


	36. V/2: Resistance

His gaze drilled into the girl’s eye sockets. She reclined a bit and averted her eyes – for a short while – but remained untouched apart from that. “You will not remove yourself from your parents’ custody,” Gabriel commanded, his voice had a rough, untrained sound to it, “you will learn to respect and defer to them. You will learn that it is not a child’s place to object to his parents’ will – you will accept that they are an authority to you and that you will have to obey.”

That was the way it was… the way it always should have been. Gabriel would not allow this to change. Where would the world be without structure and order - the world and everything around it?

“But I…” the child protested.

“You keep your peace when your superiors speak!” the Archangel grovelled – perhaps a bit too loud since not only the child, also some members of the congregation winced. “Whatever made you assume that you could talk back to your mother, your teachers or – _me_ – while you are not even mature in the eyes of the law? In the eyes of anyone that _matters_?” His mouth contorted into a parody of a smile; it hurt in his mouth corners. “Once more you have demonstrated you need to be taught respect, little girl, deference and gratefulness to those who are your superior, who take care of you and make sure you don’t misstep. There is no cleansing, no ascension without the knowledge of one’s own insignificance – of whom we have to bow to in humility and gratitude – note this very well, humans! I am more than ready, little girl, since your parents seem unable to teach you manners, to supply this…”

Lilith! How good that he had thought of this awful abomination before. Even though she had renounced her position as primal mother to humanity – probably for the best, seeing how she turned out – it seemed that the humans in existence took much after her: insubordinate, irrational, self-serving. The very idea that the renegade first woman was mocking him even in her hideaway down in Hell made something go red-hot in Gabriel’s mind.

The silvery Archangel felt tension mount. Some members of the congregation exchanged charged looks – he noticed, but ignored it in favour of the would-be runaway. He would not subdue this child by words and gentleness, he saw it in her round, wet, honourless eyes – here he would have to resort to more draconian measures. Not that he hadn’t attempted to settle this the agreeable way – and not that he wouldn’t enjoy doing it the harsh one. Divine wrath, after all, was something he understood, and endorsed. “Do not force me to make your mother lock you in until you’ve bettered your ways.”

The girl screwed up her face in defiance. “Let’s see how long such would keep me…” she grumbled between clenched teeth, but not quiet enough for the Archangel to not understand.

Gabriel laughed. It was a sound so full of cynicism and sinister mirth that he almost flinched back from the sound himself. “You brought this upon yourself. You shall be sentenced to being removed, locked away from all and everyone. Who speaks to you or helps you or makes your captivity easier in any way, form or shape shall be a criminal. Until you have learnt whom you owe submission…”

“No.”

Gabriel felt cold shock reaching down to his innermost as this completely unmoved, elderly voice interrupted his sentence. Filled with righteous wrath he scanned the crowd for the perpetrator – and could hardly prevent himself from groaning and rolling his eyes as Father Francis and his hanger-on stepped forward, between the two participants of this trial who looked at them as if they had just sprung from the earth, and linked his hands, making his body a barrier in front of the Archangel.

The priest. Of course. He and this loud-mouthed woman. He could have anticipated that they would spell trouble…

Gabriel noticed that the one or the other man and woman joined them in their venture. _How aggravating._ Now he worked with them for half a year, maybe more, and already had to deal with an uprising? (The angels would have never even contemplated such a thing, they had had to beat down some renegades six millennia ago and the rest had taken the happenings to heart…) Until now he had only seen such from afar… and how could it be that a few thousand immortal, immaterial creatures were so much easier to handle than a mere handful of dejected, weak mortals?

“I will not treat this girl as an outcast or criminal because you tell me to,” Francis announced peacefully.

“The black sheep,” Gabriel grumbled, “the disobedient, riotous and destructive must be ostracised until they mend their ways so that their wickedness does not cast a bad light on us. Is it true that you have already forgotten, Father?”

“Just listen to him!” This was the woman who had so violently opposed him in the first Mass; her gesticulation was irreverent and intense. What might her name have been? Why exactly had he been magnanimous enough to grant her a chance? “He preaches unity and camaraderie, but then turns around and works at tearing us apart – not just separating us from the outside world, but also singling out individuals from among us.”

“And pertaining to this here specifically – maybe Gina should listen to her Mom a bit more – but locking her up for it and casting her out is really steep.”

“Punishment from above for such… such a triviality!”

“That nobody but themselves should be concerned with!”

The Archangel restrained himself – he hadn’t anticipated such vehement dissent, not from so many mouths and minds. This might get touchy. “The law…” he began, lifting a hand, but the woman interrupted.

She didn't let him finish. “Yes, I agree, the law that sets the ground for our community must bind us more than anything else, we have to be honest and upstanding and humane to each other. I know. But in certain circumstances…”

“This is exactly how the adversaries try to infiltrate us, to weaken us and chase us apart,” Gabriel hissed. He could almost feel the aggressive glint in his eye, and it disgusted him. Violence disgusted him. “‘In certain circumstances.’ There are no circumstances more prevalent than the book…”

He felt how control slipped between his fingers, and this was not a positive sensation. Were it just two or three who opposed him, how easy would it be to dismiss their words as ravings of lunatics or demon-worshippers and have examples be made of them! But there were many, certainly more than twenty, and he could not afford to simply miracle them into submission or away. He had to be mindful of his reputation. In bilious irony he thought that none of this would be necessary if his counterpart had gone about his-her part of the plan with anything resembling dutifulness.

_Beelzebub, where are you when you’re needed?_

_Sariel… oh Sariel, you would understand, you’d know how to handle them._

“We must preserve cosmic order, at any cost,” the Archangel added.

“I do not know how you, Gabriel, or my congregation feels about it,” Francis serenely monologued while some of his followers grabbed the girl and hid her behind their body wall, “but I would rather allow for some human nature than have this person unfairly punished because she found herself in a situation that doesn’t agree with her, and strives to ameliorate it. Laws and rules be damned.”

Gabriel glared at the priest as if honestly contemplating burning him at the stake. _Human nature_ was what they called this disorder and uproar nowadays? And it was not merely tolerated, it was _welcomed_? Then the state this cosmic junk heap was in didn’t surprise him in the least!

The woman who had initially spoken now stood at the preacher’s side. Some others had joined as well; nobody carried a weapon, but their auras, their words, their convictions were frustrating enough that Gabriel wanted to line them up and punch each one’s face.

 _Temperance_ , he reminded himself. _Patience. Benevolence. Remember… the Holy Virtues._

Exactly this was what happened when no impulses came from the opposite. Of course they did not see the need to fight the filth spreading if the filth seemed docile and harmless – or even exciting.

“It is not merely about these two,” Gabriel explained, looking down at the crowd. “It is about our integrity. Our purity. As a group – a unit. If we allow for one spark of unrest, chaos, unsteadiness to kindle among us…”

“Unsteadiness is human nature,” someone from the revolters opposed.

“Which would explain the sorry state of this planet,” Gabriel snapped.

“We do not try to evict you or to damage you in any way,” the priest continued – Gabriel felt something boiling inside him upon looking at the preacher, his reconciliatory tone like a tick in his ear, “God knows, there is enough injustice, suffering and violence on Earth so we mustn’t add to it here. Every person wanting to combat it and do the right, the clement and benevolent thing instead is a boon. But we cannot continue as it i…”

That was enough.

“You bunch of ingrates!”, the otherwise so unemotional and controlled Archangel burst out, “I attempt to lead you towards the light – ah, to kindle a little spark of heavenly light in this dark, unworthy, grimy place! I protect you from the uproar of the world, keep the demons at bay with my presence alone! I try to make you, the people who have faith and trust, pure and worthy, to make you taste and crave the light, order and the right thing to do – everything I ask in return are minor sacrifices, a little loss of comfort and sneakiness, and this is how you thank me? By revolting?”

Silence. Mere severe, unflinching countenances.

**“ANSWER!”**

“In the end,” the woman next to the priest muttered, “You too are only human, one of many, and it is not upon you to decide who of us is how pure – and what whoever must do to…”

More than enough.

Gabriel decided that wasn’t worth it anymore. How should he work with creatures that were not susceptible to gentleness nor arguments nor pressure? Oh no, he wouldn’t give up, not so easily – but for the moment he had to get away, to distract himself, breathe deep, gather a bit of strength and find back to himself, his serenity and integrity. So he spun on his heels and walked away, stomping and with thoughts buzzing through his head – oh this anger. To be able to act on it, to let everyone or anything that he met feel it! But it couldn’t happen, he had to remind himself of his nature, his primal, innate personality.

Never before had this been so backbreaking.

He could scarcely convince himself it would be wrong to let the Cherub rage freely (three pairs of wings, three heads with blinding eyes, spirit-scorching voices and razor-sharp teeth, bull and lion and man, thundering bull hooves, the collected and sublimated power of a stellar explosion) and make him open the ground under these treacherous amalgamations of flesh, organs and besmirched souls. Aziraphale and Crowley, these bumbling fools, had had neither right nor reason to save this abominable place and its uncontainable inhabitants, never had the Silvery one seen that clearer.

Gabriel moved erratically – he ran and ran without regulating speed or direction or knowing where he was headed at all or what happened around him. The anger didn’t evaporate, not through wind or rain or sun, not through day or night, not through city turmoil and not through countryside smells. A veritable miracle that none of his steps left the ground devastated behind him! He might have crossed various states before he saw that advertisement that made him halt his flight.

No, he sluggishly thought to himself as he studied the poster, he would not give in. This would be a mere intermezzo – a little pause, if one wanted, to build up morale and strength before he returned and would bring these humans into line once and for all. But this here was bare necessity now – he needed this and would not go without it, needed it to get his head free and assuage the storm within.

Cursorily, the Archangel took a glance down his figure, flicked a few dirt crusts or plant parts away from suit and shoes before straightening up, arranging his hair with his fingers, mending his tie knot and the lapels of his coat, and finally took a deep breath and entered the building.


	37. V/3: On the Suicide Mission

Archangel Michael moved in pitch-black Inferno much as if she owned the place – she was perpetually checking the environment, but it was a surveillant, interested motion, not one of a woman who feared what could be lurking behind the corner next over.

Crowley, carrying a metal suitcase filled to a good quarter with flammable material like coal, paper and dry wood, had attempted to take the lead as they had exited the elevator side by side by side, but the pale Archangel had remained by his side without a further comment, maybe even half a step ahead. The demon had glared at her for it, but she hadn’t been impressed. At her commander’s orders, Uriel had remained on post in Heaven, next to Chamuel, as an emergency contingent; Aziraphale knew that their return was impatiently expected, and that if they hadn’t got word within three hours they would take it as foul play, and descend themselves.

The depths to which the group of three had descended made Aziraphale jittery, and he began to regret his insistence on taking part in this mission. It didn’t help that it was unspeakably weird to share company with two beings as complimentary and as suspicious of each other as Anthony J. Crowley and Archangel Michael; they were as three magnets that constantly and with headstrong decisiveness repelled each other.

Michael carried her flaming sword in hand, repurposing it as a torch; the antediluvian light sources in this part of Hell had mostly winked out once and for all, had shattered or tumbled out of their sockets, and without the fire you couldn’t see your own hand in front of your eyes.

The bookseller’s apprehension refused to be moderated, even though they hadn’t encountered a single angel, demon or human soul underway. There had been a minor creaking behind a reinforced door somewhere on the middle levels, but Michael had decided they were to ignore it. “As long as they do not attack, leave them to themselves,” she had replied to his distressed question whether they shouldn’t investigate, “we have bigger concerns at the moment, Heaven knows.”

Aziraphale was in training for a couple of weeks now, and slowly, his memories came through, which was both good and bad. It was good because he alarmingly rapidly found back to all competence he ever had commanded, and because his psyche reinforced itself in a way that almost distressed him; he could almost watch his self-esteem strengthen and grow. It was bad because with all the knowledge and dexterity came memories of the Revolution, of his fear and his disillusionment, his cold sorrow in the face of bloodshed, and this put scruples into his head. Did he really want to put himself in the way of all of this again – and if it were a thousand times to protect this place he called home?

Aziraphale repeatedly caught himself in clinging to these scruples and doubts, especially when he was holding his sword. Why would he need it in order to protect? Was there no way for him to serve this purpose differently – less martially?

 _Protection._ This was the buzzword that always made his responsibility and dutifulness overshadow doubts and uncertainty. Maybe he would experience drawbacks – but he would always be certain that he, everything be damned, had to protect.

Himself.

Earth.

Crowley…

Now if they ran into anyone down here! Crowley would be in an awful tight spot.

The trio’s progress was hampered, Michael made them slow down with a lifted hand, as a sea of voices reached their ears – muttering, rustling, hissing voices, a mild shimmer of silvery light that by itself illuminated the uneven corridor. Though unable to explain it to himself, Aziraphale felt uplifted, strengthened, supported by the incomprehensible murmurs – Crowley however, who fell back to his side, looked as if he would turn green any second now, rested his chin against his chest and pressed one hand over his ear, the other against his throat. Wordlessly the angel grasped his friend’s shoulder, tried to soothe him and yet didn’t dare utter a single sound. The conclusion from these reactions seemed to be plain and clear – but – something so thoroughly sacred? In this place? How would something like that ever have transpired?

Stay where you are, Michael signalled them in no uncertain terms as she neared the corner which hid the shimmer’s source from their sight. Crowley, following that, leant his back against the wall and closed his eyes, grumbling to himself; Aziraphale tried his damnedest to divide his watchfulness roughly equally between the wheezing demon and their environment and only managed with considerable effort to not make a sound, let alone ask Crowley what seemed to be the problem.

Archangel Michael cautiously rounded the corner.

“Michael!” a thundering shout came mere moments later, making Aziraphale jump violently and press a hand onto his hammering heart, and Crowley groan like the loser in a fistfight, sliding down the wall into a hunkering position, “Sister – you here? Am I still in my own sound mind? And if you are indeed present, if this isn't an illusion – did you come to make good on the promise you gave me all these centuries ago?”

Aziraphale made as sure as he momentarily could that there was nothing he could do for Crowley before he followed the commander on tiptoe. To get ahead of the situation, glean information, he had to, he told himself. 

Indeed, a peek around the corner illuminated things greatly.

The corridor ahead of them was barricaded by a web of vaguely silvery glinting threads and knots – infused with sacred energy no doubt, and the source of the maelstrom of voices. Behind it, consumed by nameless fury, the face a violent grimace and the body that of a bull readying himself for a stampede, probably enraged even more by his predicament, were Lucifer and another, ambiguously humanoid-feminine creature. This creature drew Aziraphale’s attention, his glance and his sympathy, and she made him want to address her, to release her from this place and lead her away, though the angel had not the slightest inkling of why. She was a demon after all, was she not? What about her side-stepped his circumspection and immediately addressed his kind-heartedness and desire to help?  
What did his instinct want to make him see in these blank eyes…?

“Nothing of the sort,” Michael answered stoically, lifting the hand off her sheathed sword while she neared the web, “I did not anticipate I would still encounter you in this place.”

“So?” Lucifer’s thick brow lifted. “What, then, could an elitist pig like you search down here? You haven’t fallen…” he drew in air with billowing nostrils and a facial expression that was almost perversely ravenous, like a hyena digging into roadkill, “… I would've sensed that by now. Do not assume that I wouldn't accept your sword and dedication with open arms – ah sister, the turmoil, the bedlam, the calamities we could cause together!”

“Do gather your senses about yourself, Lucifer,” the Archangel reprimanded the Lord of Hell – her voice breathed displeasure, “control your anger. Seeing you so unhinged is downright appalling.”

“There is a demon with you, though, I feel it… a base, slimy, abhorrent critter, weak but arrogant, one who thinks he will always get his way… get out of whichever hole you’re hiding in, defector!” His voice undoubtably made the whole floor shake. Aziraphale felt everything within his ribcage clench painfully. “Show yourself if there is something resembling courage within your bones… I promise I will suck it out with the marrow. Do you fear facing retribution head-on?”

Aziraphale, keeping himself painstakingly from casting a dithering sideways glance at Crowley, now understood the whys and wherefores of his state. Something needed to be done…

“I told you to control yourself,” Michael continued, more severe now, “It…”

“SHOW YOURSELF!” the first Fallen shouted his sister down – Aziraphale could see from his position, safely in Michael’s shadow, just out of the corner of his eye how Crowley, moaning, pressed his clawed hand to his stomach and curled up in agony. _Countenance_ , he told himself, tried whatever he could to remain composed and steadfast, but could not for the life of his avoid a panicky expression distorting his features. It seemed Crowley’s link to the Lord of the Fallen was mostly intact – some things were apparently not contingent on politics and oaths of fealty.

“Do you think I cannot read the signs, Crowley, you mote of dust? Do you think I had forgotten about you, despicable waste product of an already defective creation? Dirt under my fingernail! Viperish, honourless vermin! Come out now so I can look you in the eye before I…”

The angel had no idea what moved his friend to this action; Crowley, however, got to his feet laboriously and indeed made as if to leave the tunnel and step up to Aziraphale’s side, which prompted him to lift both hands to support his friend. Crowley limped, he was covered in sweat and breathed flatly, and he was either unable or unwilling to show any reaction to Aziraphale’s touch or his uneasily whispered words (“Dear, are you quite alright, what is wrong, can I do anything to help?”). All he seemed to be able to do was to stare straight ahead, with glassy eyes, over the rims of his sunglasses that had slid down to the tip of his nose, straight into Lucifer’s wickedly smirking face. Might the first Fallen have worked a miracle on him – something that allowed him, by virtue of his greater power, to force the lower-ranking demon to stand here like a statue?

And what should he, a simple Principality, be able to do about it?

Out of the corner of his eye, Aziraphale also noticed the second incarcerated demon’s reaction to the sight of Crowley, and she seemed – dare the angel say – practically flirtatious. Bizarre. 

But then, why did he care? What made him care so deeply about Lucifer's companion?

“I promise, once I get my hands on you…” Lucifer hissed, but this was Michael’s moment to make herself known again, casually and level-headedly.

“You will not harm him, Lucifer – Crowley is allied with me.”

Silence. Lucifer’s eyes enlarged as he heard this remark – even his bull’s face didn’t seem to be able to express these amounts of utter wrath. “No he isn’t,” he simply disputed this.

“If I may have a word in that matter, as well,” Crowley stuttered, “I would, ‘course only if no-one objects, I would say that I am not with anyone here…”

“If we look at it nice and close, I mean, really thoroughly, there are no such alliances anymore, after all,” the bookseller burst out, and however much he tried, he was helpless against his mouth corners twitching upward into a smile, probably as well a strategy to soothe his own fluttering nerves (success doubtful) and to appeal to his opponent’s goodwill and sportsmanship (most certainly a lost cause), “not in… in the old sense at least, or, are there? I mean, since we officially terminated, I mean, liquidated all this, and, you know, in the end, without complaint, without a... a rulebook, or anything at all, there is… is no…”

Lucifer’s grim expression let the Principality know eloquently he was in the process of talking himself in really deep, really tumultuous waters; he painstakingly brought his lips to a standstill before he could finish the noose his words put around his neck. “Fascinating,” the Adversary mumbled, “the things that are brought to your attention…”

“I am glad we could inform you,” the pale Archangel took up the thread of the conversation, having a quite definitive ring to her words. It was evident she urged toward a return to the core subject. “Apart from this, please take note of the fact that Crowley is outside of your jurisdiction for now – at least as long as I am standing between you – and you, Crowley, kindly do likewise.”

Lucifer’s glance slipped back and forth between his deserted follower and the one he had called sister. “Something _major_ must be going on if you stoop low enough as to shield one of my stooges.” 

The demoness at his side still displayed this hard-to-comprehend smile, and her tender attention seemed to be fixed on Crowley for the most part – Aziraphale couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something hovering between them, but he couldn’t for the life of him say what or why.

He himself seemed to be but thin air for both high demons. Not that he were to protest…

Crowley’s weight rested on his shoulder. The demon was wheezing, but seemed to gradually regain his ability to stand on his own two legs.


	38. V/4: Sympathy for the Devil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear reader,  
> Please beware a stabbing contained in this chapter.  
> Take care, and have a nice day!

“And you,” Lucifer turned to them as if Aziraphale, with his careless thoughts, had broken some kind of spell that had kept them off his radar, addressed them in a commandeering and superior tone which made at least Aziraphale retreat a trembling half-step – a mistake, since it made Crowley who relied on his support stagger. “Do you believe you can trust my immaculate, sublime sister? Do you believe she attached the least importance to you? Forgive me if I have to burst a bubble,” the Lightbringer chortled maliciously, “but where other creatures have their facility for emotions, she has merely a chunk of steel.”

There was abhorrence in his words, a bitter, revolted note – and Aziraphale felt himself within a strange indecision. His lips dried and fissured, and he felt his limbs going clammy and unhandy while these thoughts chased one another about his head. It went without saying that he, as a member of the Heavenly Host, could not empathize with the first Fallen, the violent rebel, him who had reduced the celestial harmony to nothingness and even now wore his wickedness on his sleeve – it was part of his job. Still, he sensed like tickling insect legs at the base of his skull the realization that he had never bothered to look at things from Lucifer’s perspective, never even attempted to understand his reasoning. This, too, somehow seemed to be part of the job. Who else should accept ad reassure those who were not deserving, if not an angel?

Certainly, he had instigated the first war, the first rattling of celestial concord and co-existence and a catastrophe that had directly undermined Aziraphale’s own personal convictions, but he would not have done it out of sheer spite or boredom, would he? So, what might it have been that incited this wish in him? Had it really been merely hunger for power, blood and demolition, as went the official version, or was there something deeper – something in which Michael might have played a crucial part?

Aziraphale told himself this was not the time, nor the occasion, to ponder this, but was helpless against having to do it nevertheless. He could only hope it wasn’t written in his features.

“She will throw you away – or worse – the very moment you stop meeting her big-headed standards.”

“Lucifer…” his companion now spoke up, but he silenced her with a menacing glance. Aziraphale saw her averting her glance and chewing on her lower lip, apparently herself not completely certain of what she would have wanted to say.

The pale Archangel’s posture was stable – untouched. Aziraphale caught himself in wishing to be able to see her face, her eyes, since her voice and poise didn’t communicate any emotional stirring – didn’t betray whether Lucifer’s insinuation had moved her an inch out of her never-ending serenity. “Let this be a concern between me and my allies. This apart from the fact that this pertains to nothing in this situation. The both of us should address the matter at hand so we may proceed on our respective paths. We have need of some Hellfire, Lucifer…”

“Forget it,” the Fallen one barked – the demoness at his side, however, now stepped into the alien, pale, celestial light. Aziraphale felt a lightning bolt of recognition hit his brain without him directly being able to speak her name or attach her to a meeting time and place, to words they might have minced.

“Leave be, Lucifer,” she pacified him, one hand placatingly on his chest without averting her glance from Michael, “let me take care of this, will you?”

They had met before, the angel was certain – centuries, oh, eras ago. He knew this face, its shape, the outline of her nose, the deep-set eyes, the now discoloured lips, even the voice that oddly reminded him of saltwater was eerily familiar; at the same time, however, he knew he had never encountered her before, didn’t know the opaque eyes, the energetic line above them, her sickly, greenish-greyish-white complexion, the crowning swells of horn around her temples. His knowledge of her identity was as a rodent locked in a cardboard box: it gnawed and bit in order to break free, squeaked and twisted and turned, was unpleasant and prickling, but one couldn’t quite see or name what it was.

“I will not be pushed back by you,” the Devil grumbled.

“Then stay where you are, by all means,” she snapped back, rolling her eyes, “but leave the talking to me from now, will you? We finally have a chance to get out of here after Hastur achieved a whole lot of nothing – and if it means we need to haggle with your sister, let me tell you, I would be willing to do much worse to finally leave this stinking quarry behind.”

Michael nodded appreciatively. “Thank you, Lilith.”

This hit the angel like a hammer to the forehead. Memories streamed back with the force of cascades, and several mucosae of his physical body seemed to dry up all at once.

“Lilith,” he breathed, which at least diverted the addressee’s attention towards him – he also felt Crowley, whose stance had gained stability and self-sufficiency in the meantime, eyeing him warningly from the side ( _‘Get a hold of yourself, Aziraphale, or you’ll end us all in the hottest of hot waters’_ ), but that was utterly inconsequential at the moment. Everything that counted momentarily was the chilly feeling of trepidation that shook him to the very core.

Of course – how could he ever have mistaken her? The first woman’s face, her smoky alto voice, the rough, powerful efficiency of her movements? The first woman whose reasoning and argumentation had been interrupted by Archangel Gabriel. By Gabriel who had deprived her of consciousness to hinder her escape from Eden while he, Aziraphale, guardian of the Eastern Gate, had held her hands…

“Lilith, what in Heaven’s most sacred name happened to you?” He ran towards her, rushed past Michael who merely shot him a look expressing how at a loss she was, and, as soon as he could reach it, hooked his fingers into the net separating them. The magic belonging to the angel who had worked these miracles seeped into his blood and nerves, tickling and itching, ringing in his ears, but also making him feel paradoxically hopeful and jolly. Aziraphale painstakingly kept his countenance and concentration upright. “Who has done… this to you? Lilith – Lilith, have the angels abandoned you so you saw no possibility but to take shelter with the Adversary? I know, I wish I had come to search you back then, as I deliberated, but…” His voice died away miserably.

“I dunno what you think she is, Aziraphale, but lemme tell you… she’s nothing close,” Crowley’s voice droned from the background, but Aziraphale could hardly properly decode his statement.

“What do you know about her!” he shot back over his shoulder.

“A whole lot actually,” the demon grumbled, but the Principality’s attention was already fixed on his stolen charge.

Neglected responsibility rained down on his conscience in the form of this woman – this demon. Apparently, fate had taken a worse toll on her than he had expected. All these centuries he had existed with the reassuring hope that she would have found a way to provide for herself, as Adam and Eve had done, and died in old age, satisfied, unshackled and self-sufficient as she would have liked it, her soul returned to the ether, safeguarded by the angels… and now this.

Lilith’s face remained hard and unapproachable. “I assumed you had completely forgotten about me,” she muttered.

“How could I ever have…” Aziraphale shot down his own doubts and blames.

“What is the meaning of this?” Michael asked, sounding genuinely interested.

“Let’s call it coming to terms with one’s past,” Lilith replied quietly, never loosening eye contact with the bookseller. “What has become of me, guardian of the Eastern Gate? Temptress, evocatress, mesmerist. Mistress of Hell. Monarch over everything that moves down here… I have grown powerful, influential, angel of the Lord, and I assure you that your magic or your sweet smile will not help you subdue me or my will one more time.”

Aziraphale’s lips drifted apart and closed again – he wanted to say something and couldn’t make up his mind what would be most fruitful. “It is not too late,” was what he, dully and distantly, heard himself say.

Lucifer gave an entertained snort.

Crowley in the background moaned in infuriation.

A tender half-smile formed on Lilith’s lips. “Too late for what?” she posed the question that also had bloomed in Aziraphale’s subconscious, pounding like a particularly persistent, pinching headache.

“You can still be… saved, Lilith.”

“The very idea.” There was no hint of misgivings or reluctance in the monarchess’ voice. “Even if I wanted your salvation… my list of transgressions is long enough that I…”

“Repent out of the depths of your soul and you may be redeemed,” Michael added, even, monotonous and neutral. She stood there, slightly reclined on her heels and with her arms crossed, a very picture of resilience. “Repent and atone, and we may consider an ascension. Perhaps not directly into the light itself since you are a human child, after all, but…”

Lilith demonstratively turned away from Aziraphale and toward Michael. Her offer was not worth any further discussion. “Let us bargain, Michael,” she addressed the Archangel, “I think our moves are very obvious. Release us… remove this work of God here and let us go. Then you can get all the Hellfire you can get your greedy hands on.”

“I will not endorse this,” Lucifer grunted.

“Then do not endorse it, but let me at least try to regain our freedom,” she snapped.

“Lilith, you cannot just give up…” Aziraphale begged and made as if to extend his arm through the loops of the net and touch Lilith’s shoulder, reassuringly, pleadingly – which gave rise to many things happening nearly at the same time.

Lilith flinched back with a furious hiss; it was as if Aziraphale had tried to spit at her.

Lucifer, his face a mask of unhinged rage, started forward, past his companion, ready to seize the Principality’s arm and yank it out of the shoulder joint.

Michael reacted quicker than a thunderclap; before Crowley could have drawn a sharp breath or Aziraphale given a cry of horror, before Lucifer’s cloddish, clawed hand had as much as brushed the bookseller’s wrist she had already grabbed the intrepid soldier’s shoulder, pushed him back and thrust through the net with the other hand, having drawn her sword in fractions of a second.

The blade found Lucifer’s lower stomach and penetrated muscle tissue like butter.

Aziraphale retched, bit his lower lip and turned away erratically, shielding his chalk-white and nevertheless heated face with both hands. The pale Archangel’s hand between his shoulder and chest was like an electric pulse.

Lucifer struggled, rattling and gulping, for air, pressed both hands onto his abdomen which released a thick trickle of dark blood, and fought the impulse of letting his eyeballs roll back in their sockets. Michael observed well as he sank onto his knees and slumped aside, powerlessly.

Lilith’s expression showed no sorrow – it rather resembled grim satisfaction.

“If you had let me answer,” the Archangel spoke up, “I would have concurred. But then you never were able to properly listen…”

“I approve,” Lilith seized this opportunity. “Take down this net and move the Heaven on. Take all the Hellfire you can carry. But if you attempt another time – just one more time! – to come close to me…” her glance diverted threateningly to Aziraphale who, subject to this, felt a teary cry struggle in his throat, “… you shall rue it.”

“Should we really do that?” Crowley’s tone was gruff, his reservation and second thoughts evident. “I mean the way things look now we have him… finally under control. Letting him out… isn’t that rather counterproductive?”

Michael took a few moments to ponder this – then, however, she softly shook her head. “This is the price we have to pay,” she deliberated, “and I worry… well, I do not worry all too much about Lucifer. Apart from the fact that he is a known, perhaps a necessary evil and Earth has endured for thousands of years even under his influence: I have defeated him once… I do not see any reason why I would not be able to repeat this feat.”

 _Your word in the Almighty’s ear_ , Aziraphale thought, electrical discharges along his whole body and with the conviction that he had never in his life felt comparably miserable and dejected.


	39. V/5: Principles

With a sparse gesture, Michael enlisted Aziraphale to help her remove the barrier; at first he seemed hesitant, but as Lilith turned away to check on the injured, he steeled himself and approached at Michael’s side. He owed it to the firstborn woman, he thought mournfully, to at least help her break free now after he had failed her in Eden. Neither his brain nor his vocal folds knew the right words for this occasion, so he worked silently with a foreboding feeling that the floor beneath his feet would give and become permeable to angelic flesh every second now. His tongue was desiccated, his heart felt hollow, and the back of his head was filled with an ensemble of various pains, stings, drones, pinches, burns.

Lilith… had his failing really been this integral to her long-lasting suffering?

He had only wanted the best of all worlds for her…

In his way he had shielded her, in the only way he knew how to!

Oh Gabriel, you… how very dare you!

Crowley stepped up to his side after a while, markedly tactful enough to neither say something flippant nor touch him. The angel, however, noticed that a glance fluttered back and forth between the demons. While Crowley’s expression was grave and no-nonsense, though full of honest, wistful respect, Lilith smiled condescendingly, if also with pleasant nostalgia and playful affection, if Aziraphale, intruding upon the exchange from the side, wasn’t at all mistaken. This made the Principality wonder – what kind of history did these two have to smile back upon?

“You take his injury rather indifferently,” the pale Archangel commented as Lilith knelt beside Lucifer whose chest pumped vehemently and cradled his head in her lap.

“He got what he was asking for,” she replied brusquely. Not that it concerned any of you, was the unspoken undertone.

Removing the net, coiling it up and fixing it to Michael’s back only took a couple of minutes; she had decided they would keep it, it might very well be useful in the ventures to come. “Come now,” she ordered Aziraphale and Crowley while Lilith helped Lucifer, still gasping and pressing a hand onto his stomach wound, to get to his feet. Angel and demon concurred, side by side, and the hopeful, beseeching sideways glance the angel shot the infernal monarchess as both couples passed each other found but her averted profile.

Archangel Michael led the way without ever decelerating or stopping. Not even the door, encrusted with a bizarrely organic-crusty substance, emblazoned with Lucifer’s sigil, made her halt for more than a disdainful snort. The growth had produced sounds – squeaking, rasping, crunching, chewing, unnatural sounds, much like the peeps of chicks with toothed beaks – upon the Archangel’s daring to touch the door blade, and Michael's fingertips had shown searing, sooty rejection reactions, but Aziraphale’s concern in that regard had turned up nothing. “It hurts indeed,” Michael had waved his alarmed question away, shrugging, and proceeded.

Crowley had rolled his eyes and given an impatient moan.

Their descent had continued.

In a nondescript, undressed, cavernlike room deep inside Earth’s bowels, even beyond Lucifer’s office, they finally found what they looked for: the spring of Hellfire. A stream of lava, arising from the unhewn floor, on which danced and flickered lush, almost translucent flames, and an imprecisely round basin in which the substance pooled. The entryway arch was decorated with runes and gargoyles; none of these seemed to take too lightly to so much celestial presence, but stayed put for the moment. The angels, having to arrange themselves with the oppressive, biting heat and sinister energy the fire emanated, remained standing in the entryway arch, breathing heavily and wiping sweat from heavenly brows. Their glances were mostly fixed on the floor, and Aziraphale had to lean against the wall in order to keep upright. The demon, however, had entered the cavern without a breaking a sweat, without difficulty breathing, without any burning on his skin. Being in this atmosphere seemed to invigorate him, even.

At the basin’s rim, Crowley had sunk onto his knees and leant forward – Aziraphale felt his heart in his throat. What now if he overestimated himself? If he lost balance, tumbled into the substance face-first – certainly, Hellfire could not harm a demon, but if the lava smothered him?

“Behold,” he muttered, assuaging Aziraphale’s misgivings by dipping his unprotected hand into the substance, and after some time submerging the whole arm up to the shoulder, “and just think what I could accomplish with this if I were of any mind to. Are you at all aware that I am the only one here who’s able to touch this,” speaking thus, he lifted his hand upon which now danced scarlet red flames, bathing his face in an infernal gleam, and shot the angels a menacing look over his shoulder, “or even look at it funny without getting utterly obliterated? The possibilities that come with it make one downright dizzy, Mike, I tell you.”

The Hellfire’s presence didn’t even make the demon perspire. He was a formidable sight, indeed.

“I reckon we have no time now for power fantasies,” Aziraphale tried to gently talk sense into his friend, fidgeting and fumbling with his fingers as he was feeling fraught, uncomfortable, and would like nothing more than to swiftly leave, “Let’s not dilly-dally. Just take whatever we need – whatever you can carry – and then let’s be on our merry way, shall we?”

But Crowley wasn’t finished yet. He lifted, extending his Hellfire-coated arm toward the angels; the threat was unmistakable. Aziraphale felt unable to believe his own eyes – Crowley had never been like this, not since he knew him. “Thinking about this more closely, and I can hardly believe I’m saying this, but maybe Satan there might’ve had a point. Why _should_ we trust you, Mike? Why should _anyone_? You just demonstrated how fast you’re prone to explode.” His hand lowered menacingly toward the Archangel who, in turn, did barely more than lift a brow, “Give me a reason to not burn you away as you stand there. One someone-forsaken reason, Mike. Not kidding. You’ve deserved it by all means, seeing how you treated Aziraphale.”

The angel had merely lowered his head and closed his eyes. Each protest would have been insincere – a blatant fabrication.

Not showing any signs of disconcertion Michael advanced, forsaking carelessly the cover Aziraphale’s proximity half-half willingly provided. “I see myself duly impressed by your ability to constantly overlook the fact that this is about more than you or Aziraphale.”

“I’m not ‘overlooking’ it,” Crowley mimicked, docilely stashing away the Hellfire, “sometimes I just get myself a kick out of negating it. Still won’t get it through my head that we’re meant to be best friends now.”

“Best friends?” Michael sounded sincerely taken aback, bewildered, upon echoing these words. “Whatever makes you contemplate friendship, Crowley? Do not mistake our co-operation for something personal or sentimental. I, for my part, have little capacity for sentiment, and most of it is used to provide Uriel with the love she deserves.

You are allies – crucial allies of whom I assume they serve the same cause as I – and as such no harm will be inflicted upon you as long as I can prevent it, regardless of what my personal opinion of your person may be. This belongs to my code of honour. If you, however, choose to betray the cause…” her voice lowered and grew threatening, “… if I have any reason to believe or know that you work against our agreement, do not kid yourselves, then I will neutralize you. It is nothing personal – I would do the same for Uriel – but I reckon you should know if you falsely assume that this were about you personally. Now pack up, Crowley, we are running out of time.”

At first Crowley had just startled, hunkering next to the clasped-close case. “I don’t buy that,” he threw back then, his sunglasses resting close to the tip of his nose, face and voice stunned, “I mean, with us, yes, sure, who cares… but with her? Her whom you… of whom you say yourself that you… you would use the same framework for her as for…”

“It is called impartiality,” the pale Archangel interrupted, probably less cool than she had planned to sound, “and consistence. I am certain she would want me to act no differently – and she would do much the same for me.”

_For you?_

_Blessed and blessed again… **for** you_?!

“So that’s your shit-show definition of ‘doing things for someone?’”

“Do feel free to think of me whatever you deem to be most appropriate, Crowley. Now see to it that you finish, our return is expected upstairs.”

A disgruntled-disbelieving-stunned staring duel later Crowley finally rose from the floor, gathered up the Hellfire and the trio could make their way out of Hell. Aziraphale stealthily thanked the Almighty for no further encounters on their way back to the elevators.

The angel himself still considered the case of Lilith. Had he – had Heaven let her down all that badly?

Crowley had not moved off his standpoint – he kept bombarding Michael with questions and scornful glances all the way up. It was one claustrophobic elevator ride.

“How’s that even possible, by the Almighty’s…” the demon interrupted himself before completing the swear; his voice much resembled a grater. That Michael looked at the elevator’s roof rather than him had not even made him consider slowing down. “How do you assume you can be a saint toward your allies and behind their backs go all Brutus on those who aren’t – or who just stopped? It’s still the same beings, bless! You can’t have it both ways – either you’re faithful to them or you aren’t!”

Michael gingerly lifted a brow. “Your colourful idiom does not make it easier to follow your argumentation.”

“You know blessed well enough what I’m on about!”

“If you are this certain of what I know, then why even are we having this debate?”

Aziraphale cleared his throat. “Dear, I really think you should rather let this matter rest…”

“The devil will I let…” Crowley wasn't to finish the phrase; he gulped, twisted his head atop his neck in every possible direction and uttered a short, heedless sound of disgust.

“And then the… whatever there is with Uriel,” he grunted, continuing his argumentation, “That you think you could just throw her away same as anyone. What do you think what kind of… of friendship, or whatever that should be, even is this?”

Michael didn’t answer.

“How can you be so calm at such an… such an idea?”

“I cannot say I was surprised you do not understand this.”

Crowley grunted gutturally. “Then enlighten me, you beacon of heavenly wisdom.”

Now, finally, Michael turned to face Crowley; Aziraphale wanted to call her expression tired, angered or even mildly interested, but her features merely expressed the usual cool indifference. “Have you ever been in a war, Crowley?” she asked, just so not involved enough to sound patronizing. “Commander on a battlefield? No, do not answer; I know your file, Rahtiel, builder. You would be able to relate to my attitude had you ever been at the centre of combat and known: all these angels around you – they depend on you, your words, your command, your strength, your assessment. They depend on you leading them. They depend on you providing guidance, valour and confidence, and on your protection; they know that their well-being depends on your being sound of mind, and leading them as wisely as you can. This applies to the highest officer as well as to the most interchangeable recruit. I cannot afford to make distinctions between allies and therefore invite strife and discontent… the same rights and duties apply to all.”

Silence. Crowley stared at the pale Archangel out of disbelievingly squinted snake eyes; Aziraphale beside them gnawed on his lower lip. Michael’s words hit home, hit deep, and opened several old wounds.

“I am certain if you were to ask, Aziraphale would gladly explain why discipline, camaraderie and equality are indispensable to a military unit. A brigade must think and move like a single body. Each soldier must be able to entrust his existence to any other without drawbacks. If one does prove to be unworthy of this trust, does so willingly and intentionally, he has betrayed everyone he serves with, and nothing may be done for him, be he general or simple soldier, regardless of personal bounds.”

“But, you know, this here isn’t a battlefield anymore.” Crowley’s voice was grating and hoarse. “Things have changed. Developed, so to speak. There’s no need for these dusty old systems.”

_It is **okay** to have emotions, to not see everything black and white…_

And whyever did he even care what kind of bullshit-view Michael entertained of her deputy? Or of anything and anyone, in fact?


	40. V/6: Another Old Friend

“These are the systems I was taught to move in.” Michael sounded indifferent.

“And? Happy with that, are we now?”

Aziraphale lifted his glance off his intertwined fingers which he had stared at the last couple of minutes. What would he have to think of the belligerent undertone in Crowley’s voice?

“What is it that you want to hear, Crowley? Why are you posing all these questions?”

The demon appeared thoroughly conflicted as he continued. “Did you never have the desire to change? Maybe – to make some things better, to adapt, to move on from being the celestial club that goes bang on all of the dissenters’ heads, ah I dunno, to maybe learn something new now and again? To broaden your scope? Experience new things? To feel a bit more, out of your blessed self, and act less abiding to centuries-old patterns and commands from who-knows-where? To show a little appreciation for one who’s obviously close to you?”

There had been maybe a tad too much vehemence in that last statement…

“It does not make any difference.” Michael’s brow shifted ever so slightly upward, but she seemed neither angered nor impatient – merely quietly astounded. “It is not my place to pass value judgments or to change what the Almighty made the nature of a thing, or of a creature. I was created to fight, and to lead the angels in battle, and I will not argue with that.”

“You and your Almighty,” Crowley muttered, and Aziraphale grabbed his shoulder – firmly – to get him to shut up, but Michael hardly paid them any mind.

“I am no more and no less than the creator’s servant,” she murmured as the elevator finally reached the upper storey and shuddered to a halt. “My will and opinion are immaterial. My duty is to accept the circumstances and work with how they are, not to strive to change them, since the Almighty’s plan…”

“Ineffable, I know,” Crowley grumbled and facetiously waved his hand through Heaven’s air.

Michael shot him a hard-to-decode glance before she exited the elevator and guided her two charges toward the agreed-upon meeting point. Aziraphale sensed, somewhat paradoxically, that Crowley’s rotten mood and disrelish had subsided a bit on their way up – one would have to inquire after his wellbeing later-on, there was a lot to discuss – but now that they put their feet on celestial flooring his condition worsened again.

In the sitting room which had been chosen for further discussion and planning they were expected by Uriel and the reading and murmuring Chamuel, Kushiel and Rogziel of the Angels of Punishment, sitting around as if they didn’t quite know what to do or say, where to look. Even the very sight of his former comrades-in-arms made Aziraphale get the collywobbles; he almost found it preferable to wander around lost in Hell than to shiver under the Quartermaster's disdainful glance. And – much to the Principality’s surprise – there was the long missing, presumed dead, Archangel Raphael, having a lively conversation with a boyish-looking, lanky angel he himself had never encountered before. The posh professional clothing of the angels appeared utterly out of place on his slender physique;if someone put him in thick glasses, a washed-out, colourless sweater and slack pants and put him into a computer room, no-one would have been any the wiser.

All conversations died down as they entered the sitting room; they immediately commanded everyone’s more or less polite and respectful attention. Raphael’s smirk was broad and youthfully cheerful enough that Aziraphale felt thrown by it. Was today international meet-presumed-dead-old-allies-day?

“Azfiel! So good to see you once again,” the Healer addressed him vigorously, and the bookseller solidified as Raphael who had, at least to his humble eyes, not aged a day left his chair and rushed towards him as if to embrace him.

“Eh… hello,” was everything he could muster, with an overwhelmed smile on his lips.

All too close in front of him the healing Archangel finally stopped, lowering his arms without a touch. “Or – I was told you renamed yourself Aziraphale after our meeting. Forgive me, it is hard to remain up to date in solitary confinement.” The Healer laughed. The Principality felt a shiver of restless doubts pass through him. What did that mean, _solitary confinement_? “Aziraphale, my friend, it’s been so long, and I am so unspeakably proud of you. I have watched from my cell how you – both I mean – how you’ve fared before the planned Apocalypse. I have watched you on the airbase – and how you shoved his own garbage down Gabriel’s throat – that was priceless!”

The healing Archangel gave renewed, chipper laughter. Aziraphale merely stared and tried his damnedest to keep his half-smile. He felt overawed and blindsided by Raphael’s enthusiasm and laid-back attitude. The situation was bizarre to him: he had for centuries come to terms with the knowledge that the Archangel who had so deeply influenced his character and decisions had disappeared without a chance of return, and now he stood there and laughed uproariously, claimed to be proud of him and his deeds… Aziraphale mused he would need the next two or three months just to emotionally work through the happenings of the last three or four hours.

“Well, erm… yes, thank you. I guess. I, erm, I merely tried to do the right thing.”

There was a warmth in Raphael’s smile that was uncharacteristic for an angel as he gently patted Aziraphale’s shoulder, commending, cheering, a bit challenging. There was nothing intimidating about him, but his exuberance and his amity, fully unironic and utterly eye-to-eye, took the bookseller aback. He had never encountered the like in Heaven. 

“I know,” the Healer said. “And I draw an enormous amount of hope and encouragement out of the knowledge that angels like you, with a mindset like you, are still allowed to exist.”

“An’ what kind of clown is that one, now?” Crowley finally spoke up, and Raphael’s attention shifted. For one time, Aziraphale was almost glad that his friend never minced words – in this situation he could only welcome every distraction and relaxation.

“He happens to be the Archangel Raphael,” Uriel explained, having by now welcomed her commander with the other military angels. “I, were I in your place, would think again before I called him that.” There was no real threat in that statement.

In front of the soldiers lay, still coiled up and brimming with power, the net. Kushiel examined it momentarily, with gentle touch and tentative lip movements. Probably, she pondered aloud, one of the angels of wisdom or science wold have to inspect it to work out which invocations exactly had been spoken, how they could use or, conversely, circumvent or break them.

“Ah, sister dear, your kindness moves me to tears. And you are…?” the healing Archangel addressed Crowley politely – he, however, merely gave a flippant grunt and turned away. “I mean, I think I remember you from the day of the Revolution, even if you have indeed changed, and as I said, I saw you on the airbase, but I don’t think we ever were nominally introduced.”

“Name’s Crowley,” the demon grumbled.

“Anthony Crowley,” Aziraphale added, unable to justify to himself why. Probably only due to the fact that talking soothed him, and because he felt the nigh unassailable impulse to defend Crowley and their friendship in front of each and every angel they met. He also caught himself in lifting a hand as if to touch Crowley – maybe clasp his shoulder or just slightly tap his upper arm. No, their relationship was well and good – he had every right to keep the demon close… “He is – we are friends. He is, deep down, an admirable soul…”

“Will you sh…” Crowley hissed, but Raphael interjected.

“So, Anthony Crowley.” Even on him, the Archangel wasted a smile and seemingly didn’t think it a waste; he even bowed to the demon, completely bereft of mockery. “Nice getting to know you. We, as living beings, have much to thank you for, too.”

“‘s hat a trap?” Crowley muttered, but Raphael shook his head.

“I would never…” the Healer began, but once again, Michael called everyone back to the matter at hand and pointed out that they had assembled to get work done.

“Do you have the Hellfire?” the boyish angel opened their discussion; Crowley glanced at him with a frown and demonstratively lifted the case. “Great! Name’s Mumiah, by the way. Nice to meet you. I never would have thought I would once work together with a demon, since, you know, not that I personally had anything to say against them, I mean, you…” the boy blushed a scarlet shade of red; his lie, or at least skirting of the truth, was perfectly evident. 

Michael cleared her throat; with a quick, disconcerted sideways glance at her, Mumiah took up the thread again, now speaking nearly twice as fast, “But, you know, doesn’t matter now, doesn’t matter at all now that we’re all here… yeah. Crowley, we will need you.”

“Sure you will,” the demon answered, leaning back on his heels and glancing vaguely in Mumiah’s direction. Uriel had taklen the supervisor's position; Michael stared into the far-off, hardly even present mentally. Aziraphale had taken a seat next to her; Raphael had returned to Mumiah’s side; only the demon had remained on his feet, just to be on the safe side.

The teenage angel continued, largely unperturbed, “Och and myself, we have retrieved several rolls of fire-repellent material form Earth – they make firefighter’s suits out of it and other stuff, nothing that concerns us now. I’ll spare you the chemistry and technology. We will cut that material into stripes and make a sturdy rope – Crowley, we will have to ask you to place a spark of Hellfire in it here and there. Just a spark, so we have an ember, not a fire – so the rope is infused with infernal power, will be stable and maybe sting a bit, but not destroy, making clear that if it got torn…”

“We will not need a lot of rope,” Uriel added, “just enough to bind Gabriel’s wrists.”

“Ah, and I thought you wanted me to catch him as with a lasso,” Crowley croaked.

The humour of this remark was lost to the angels.

“We can use this for detaining Beelzebub,” Michael completed, putting a hand onto the net. “That means, if she fails to be awed by words and swords, and by being surrounded.”

Raphael screwed up his face in indignity. “Is that not a bit much, Michael?” he asked reproachfully, “I mean, we don’t aim to disintegrate them, and I am certain whatever magic is in these knots, they can do nasty things to demon skin. And a couple of layers beneath…”

Michael shrugged. “We have to be prepared for every eventuality,” she claimed.

Aziraphale perceived a shadow of dissatisfaction pass over Archangel Raphael’s features before he leant back and crossed his arms. Michael’s view of these things, at least, visibly disgusted him, and still he made the attempt to work with it. Aziraphale gently opened his lips as if to say something, appease everyone, but nothing came to mind, so he closed them again. In the end, he thought, all that was left to him was to be happy that he was not the only one who listened less to the guidelines and more to the beings around himself – or, that had to be admitted, plain himself.

“So, what are we waiting for?” Kushiel. Her voice was deep, energetic and driving – a voice that was not used very often. Her strict glance checked the room. “I suggest you start your work, and the commanders, Chamuel, Rogziel and myself, and the new recruit of course, we turn to the drill.”

‘The new recruit.’ It felt slimy, uncomfortable and somehow deprecative – depersonalizing – to Aziraphale to be referred to as such. But with a controlling glance at Crowley, he rose nevertheless.

_Are you feeling quite alright, dear?_

_Why d’you ask, angel? Everything’s just peachy, we’re sitting here in Heaven and have delivered ourselves fully to the whims and command of a callous ice statue._

_You know it is not quite like…_

_Yes, fuck, I know. Just let’s put this behind us._

Crowley’s fast yielding didn’t do much to reassure Aziraphale. He pressed his lips onto each other and made a mental note; another point he would have to address later.

For the moment however, as he turned around and followed the other warriors to a distant corner of the room (they had decided to frequent the biggest possible room in order to not have to separate the earthbound beings though they were to have separate tasks) he wondered whether either Crowley or Michael would have anything to say to his conscience plaguing him concerning Lilith.


End file.
